<p>How does one activate the ignore function, milkandsugar?</p>
<p>4gsmom,
go into the control panel, then go down the list on the left to Settings and Options, you will see Edit Ignore List,
click on that and add the user name you want to ignore.</p>
<p>Really keeps the blood pressure down.</p>
<p>I would submit that NOT having an amnesty policy contributes to students deaths. How many times have we seen posts here – from kids saying I got a violation what do I do? Of course kids are afraid to call for help. They dont want a violation. You can shut down parties, require community service, etc.</p>
<p>helicoptermon,</p>
<p>Daily Northwestern is also the only daily newspaper for the city of Evanston. The comments there may not necessarily come from the NU community.</p>
<p>
I suspect the legal ramification and consequence play a huge role on how schools decide on their policy. Will NU be more exposed to tort liability or negligence cases if they adopt amnesty program? Why only 74 colleges use it? I am not sure about this one but in general, sometime what seemingly “makes sense” may actually more likely put one in legal jeopardy.</p>
<p>One thought that doesn’t seem to have been covered here:</p>
<p>For those who advocate that parents should model responsible drinking, what course of action would you suggest to parents who don’t drink alcoholic beverages themselves? It seems unreasonable to ask these parents to start drinking just to set a good example – and indeed, many of them cannot start drinking because they abstain for medical reasons (such as taking medications that are incompatible with alcohol). What would you suggest?</p>
<p>Talk to the kids?</p>
<p>“and indeed, many of them cannot start drinking because they abstain for medical reasons (such as taking medications that are incompatible with alcohol)”</p>
<p>Or have a drinking problem… how would THAT discussion /demo go…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As I student, I just want to step in and say I agree with this. And I wanted to add something. People here have been talking about amnesty for the student who calls, which is important. Something else that my school does that is also good, IMO, is that it gives amnesty for someone’s first trip to the hospital for for drug/alcohol related problems. That way, when you have a friend who gets really drunk freshmen year, you aren’t sitting there wondering if they will be mad at you/in trouble if you call for help. </p>
<p>Obviously, they limit this amnesty because they don’t want to make it okay for someone to constantly drink so much they get hospitalized, but I feel like this policy does a good job allowing for safety first if someone makes one mistake.</p>
<p>In NJ-- the law allows parents to serve their own child alcohol-- it falls under some cultural provision ( for religious observation etc…) So it is not against the law to give YOUR OWN child a drink.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago in NJ-- there was a big post football game celebration at a home w/ parents & kids invited. The kids were sneaking drinking, a girl got raped in the back woods & her parents (who were not at the party) brought charges against the homeowner. The homeowner did not serve the kids and did not give permission for the kids to drink & there were many, many of their parents were there. However, many peopled looked the other way and knew kids were drinking. Tragically, someone got hurt & the homeowner – who was just trying to be a nice guy went to jail for a few months. Everyone was culpable.</p>
<p>I think drinking age should be 19- keeping it out of the HS environment and reduce the need for binge drinking (chugging vodka in private before you get to the event). And at bars, they should go to a wristband scenario-- beer & wine only- 3 purchases and your done.-- It will slow them down- making the last drink last longer, etc… (unless of course they are going bar hopping!)</p>
<p>Binge drinking of vodka-- HUGE in the HS scene-- for those in the dark. Kids put it emptied water bottles and ziplock bags (they bring straws for the ziplock). The ziplocks are harded to detect on their persons. It is easier to buy 1 big jug of vodka than a case of beer. Unfortunately kids drink 6ozs - 24 ozs and not even realize they are getting plastered until the Central Nervous System is shutting down. This is why beer is the choice of poison & why the 21 Drinking age is not working…</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is of any help to anybody but when I was 18, I had never drank alcohol. My mother realized this. She bought a 12 pack of beer and brought it to one of my last (adult league) hockey games over the summer and encouraged me to offer it to my teammates. It was my first experience with alcohol- I had a safe environment and I didn’t need to drive home. At that point, I was able gauge the effect that alcohol had on me without any of the risks or social pressures of a college party. I began college with a clear understanding of the power of alcohol and the unique way in which my body handled it. I think my mother was quite responsible (if committing a crime) in doing this.</p>
<p>??? I don’t understand - if she wanted to teach you about alcohol, why did she encourage you to offer beer to your teammates? I presume you were the only minor on the team? Was she trying to set up some kind of “adults setting a good example” situation? I would not be comfortable accepting a beer from a minor who was drinking him/herself. I just don’t see why she’d choose this venue, when she could have given you alcohol at home to familiarize you with its effects. Although I’ll reiterate that I’m skeptical that just exposing someone to alcohol, so that they know their limitations, will protect them from abusing alcohol in the future. Too many people get drunk night after night for me to buy that line of reasoning.</p>
<p>
Those situations call for discussion and lots of it. Parents explain their choices - what the medication is, how alcohol affects the meds, etc. That alcohol is a chemical that can interact with meds is something that kids need to hear. The parents are, in fact, modeling responsible behavior by not drinking, just as a designated driver does. But those choices need to be explained.
In situation, the discussion is IMPERATIVE. There is often a genetic component to alcohol addiction. Of course, it is not a one-to-one correlation. A child of an alcoholic parent isn’t necessarily going to develop alcoholism; it’s only a predisposition. But a child must be taught about that predisposition. No child, no matter how mature, can protect himself or herself from risks about which he or she is ignorant. And if a parent has a drinking problem, and can’t or won’t have that discussion, the least that parent can do is direct the child to Alateen.</p>
<p>“I don’t know if this is of any help to anybody but when I was 18, I had never drank alcohol. My mother realized this. She bought a 12 pack of beer and brought it to one of my last (adult league) hockey games over the summer and encouraged me to offer it to my teammates. It was my first experience with alcohol- I had a safe environment and I didn’t need to drive home.”</p>
<p>I think that your mom showed bad judgment. She broke the law and enabled you to break the law. She also may have enabled you in helping other underaged people break the law and even possibly drive drunk , risking harm to themselves or others.</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s safe about that having been your first experience with alcohol. Depending on your teammates, what they may have taught you was that it’s a good idea to drink until you’re drunk or to drink a lot and then get behind the wheel of a car. Just because it was an adult team doesn’t mean that they had good judgment about drinking alcohol.</p>
<p>As for your being able to gauge the effects of alcohol, the effects vary depending on lots of things including heat, how much one has eaten, what one drinks, and how tired one is. </p>
<p>I would not accept alcohol from an underage person.</p>
<p>Chedva, thank you for the thoughtful replies.</p>
<p>I don’t drink because: 1) one of my parents was an alcoholic, and my few early experiences with alcohol taught me that I like it too much – which prompted me to avoid it completely; and 2) now that I’m older, I take medicines that are incompatible with alcohol. My husband does not drink simply because he does not like it. I think that some of his meds are incompatible with alcohol, too, but that’s irrelevant because he has no interest in drinking in the first place.</p>
<p>Although my husband and I have been responsible about alcohol, and we have indeed had the conversations you suggest with both our kids, the problem remains that our kids have not seen responsible use of alcohol by a person who uses it. They grew up without other relatives nearby, and my husband and I don’t entertain, so they didn’t even see it with family or friends. I feel that their alcohol education was insufficient, but I never found any way to correct that.</p>
<p>Marian, I believe that if you’ve talked to your kids about choices, and haven’t made alcohol a “forbidden” topic (i.e. “Do not drink. Period. Ever.”), you have done what you can. Of course, nothing immunizes kids from stupid decisions, but I think the kids with the most problems are those whose parents kept them on a tight leash, and did the whole “alcohol is evil” routine. It doesn’t sound like you’ve done that. You have modeled responsible behavior regarding alcohol, even if you haven’t modeled responsible drinking behavior.</p>
<p>They’ve seen responsible and irresponsible drinking behavior in the media, even if not in real life.</p>
<p>You’ve done what you could, and you have to trust your kids to do the rest. That’s the hardest part.</p>
<p>chedva
you are on target by stressing the importance of a discussion regarding family history.
It’s interesting in my family, where there is a strong family history of problems, my brothers and sisters and I have been vigilant in having this type of discussion with our kids. Time will tell but the interesting thing is that the response varies significantly. Some have been cautious to the point of avoiding alcohol, and others argue that it won’t affect them and are taking what I think are dangerous risks. Of course, they think I’m paranoid…and I say, “Yes, I have a right to be!” The age range is pretty big here, and so far, no full blown problems, but I wonder. In any case, being aware of the risks is very important, but I fear, sometimes not enough.</p>
<p>As a student I’d like to chime in. </p>
<p>I have friends who didn’t touch alcohol in high school, never imagined drinking in college, and have parents who could never see their children drinking. Some of them drink pretty heavily and engage in “binge drinking” a few times a month, if not every weekend. Some still don’t drink, but they have all had tiny amounts of alcohol either at dinner or trying it early on freshman year before deciding that they didn’t like it. No matter what your habits are as parents or what talks you have with your children, they have minds of their own and make stupid decisions about plenty of things (whether alcohol is one of those things depends on the child). A lot of things happen the first week of college and there is no way to guarantee how a child will react to their first college party and/or their first college drinking experience. Some people end up on that slippery slope known as alcoholism while others never touch the stuff again.</p>
<p>I also go to a school with the amnesty policy and it’s great. I’ve dragged a friend to the hospital before and know others who have too. I have no idea what would have happened if we didn’t have the policy (in terms of getting in trouble, most people I know would hopefully drag someone to the emergency room). Considering that my school has like 3 hospitals on campus it would be insane for someone to die of alcohol poisoning.</p>
<p>belevitt,: “She bought a 12 pack of beer and brought it to one of my last (adult league) hockey games over the summer and encouraged me to offer it to my teammates.”</p>
<p>WHAT? ENCOURAGED YOU TO OFFER IT TO YOUR TEAMMATES??? Were you the only minor on the team? If not, I don’t understand what your mom was thinking. Providing beer to you and other kids is supposed to teach YOU responsible drinking? If that was her goal, then she could have given you beer at home and left your friends out of it! </p>
<p>If she had offered beer to my underaged kids, I hope they’d have turned her down. If not (and even if they did and I heard about it) I’d have turned her IN. An adult handing out beer to other people’s underaged kids is not only illegal, but WRONG - unless she’d gotten the permission of every other parent on the team. How did she know some of the kids on the team weren’t already drinkers? Or were driving? </p>
<p>As a parent, the thought of another parent encouraging my kid to drink makes me furious. They don’t know MY kids, OUR situation, or my values - and encouraging my kid to do something both illegal and tempting is… I can’t even think of a word to describe how angry I would be. If my kid made that choice on their own that would be one thing. But to have another PARENT ENCOURAGING them to break the law…</p>
<p>As for modeling responsible drinking, I sometimes wonder if DH and I should drink a little more so our kids see it. I’m not a big fan of the taste of beer or most mixed drinks, and frankly it has too many calories for me. DH enjoys beer but he’s frugal - he’d just as soon drink water. </p>
<p>But once two years ago, DH and I were with our kids at their grandfather’s retirement dinner. DH had 2 glasses of wine with dinner, over the course of 4 hours. I had one glass. As we left the restaurant, both kids assumed that my son should drive, since DH and I had been drinking! I explained that we were in an unfamiliar area, it was dark, traffic was heavy, and DH was NOT anywhere near being impaired - and we would be safer with an experienced driver at the wheel. The kids argued with me for 5 minutes. I guess I should have been pleased that they thought that way…</p>
<p>Last summer we were going to a party in the neighborhood and I decided to make up a pitcher of margaritas to bring. So I had to buy a bottle of tequila (we had no hard liquor in the house, not that we object to it, we just aren’t big drinkers). D - age 16 - came home and saw the bottle on the counter and flipped. “What’s that? Why do you have that? You don’t drink!” You’d have thought it was lines of cocaine on the counter, the way she reacted. After that I told DH, “Maybe we need to drink a little more when we’re around the kids, so they can see what normal drinking looks like!”</p>
<p>senior year in high school. Son invited to a after prom party at one of his friends parents. We know them but don’t know them well. Invite goes out for a pre- prom picture taking party at this home. We attend along with about 7 or 8 sets of parents. Hosting parents proceed to give a tour of their home…including the “party” room. And the beer pong table. And the cases of beer. “Don’t worry, we collect the keys”. Oh my. I feel like throwing up. All the other parents seem fine. Son pulls me aside and pleads with me not to “mess things up and embarrass his date”. I comply after getting agreement that he will control himself and call me in the morning and they all go off in their limo. Everything turned out OK (as far as I know) and son and I had a long talk the next morning. Good training for college? Yikes! These parents are NUTS!!!</p>