<p>My son and his roomates all college sophmores were caught on campus this weekend and fined for underage drinking. To my surprise my son has been fined twice before, once for 50 dollars for being in the presence of and the second for 75 dollars for being caught underage drinking. He has a meeting with the school based on his second offense. School rules seem to be pretty lax. He worked all summer and has paid the fines, naturally I am upset with him and trying to figure out what I can do to punish him to make him realize he better be careful and respect himself and the school rules. How the heck do you punish a college sophmore ??</p>
<p>Make them get a minimum 20-hour a week job (preferably on weekends) to partially pay for tuition. Not as punishment, but as part of growing up.</p>
<p>^^ I second that! There’s no reason for you to foot the tuition bill for someone who isn’t there to learn. Three times is a lot to get caught – you have to figure there is more drinking that getting caught, so you might also want to have a talk, but imho college age children are convinced they are both infallible and immortal.</p>
<p>Just curious, are most colleges and universities policies for underage drinking fairly relaxed just issuing fines ect. ??? My sons private LAC seems to have a very specific policy with three or four warnings with fines for casual offenses (drinking underage, being in the presence of…ect…) Any violence or beligerence related to drinking are more severe such as probabtion or expulsion.</p>
<p>If he’s planning on going on “parent funded” spring break - don’t fund.</p>
<p>He is an adult, he was fined by the college and he paid the fine. At least he didn’t put it on his bursar, which is what D1 would have done. But D1 would have been smart enough not to get caught.</p>
<p>Because of drinking issues, the University of Iowa has adopted a very strict alcohol policy for those living in or visiting dorms.</p>
<p>Freshman are routinely booted from the dorms during orientation week (and throughout the year) for failure to comply with the policy.</p>
<p>"Unlawful manufacture, distribution, sale, use, or possession of illegal, addictive, dangerous, or controlled substances (including alcohol) on residence hall property. Empty alcohol containers and drug paraphernalia are prohibited. "</p>
<p>MHMM----Thas is a great suggestion, he worked for me over Thanksgiving break so he could make some extra money for a Spring Break Trip and annual New Years Trip to see friends. He will be agast when we take those privileges away based on him drinking irresponsibly at school.</p>
<p>You could take the approach with him that if he has enough money to pay drinking fines then he has enough money to match that towards any support you’re giving him - i.e. his fines essentially double with half going to you. Why should you pay the extra $125 of support to him when he just spent $125 in fines? Either withhold $125 or have him pay it to you in cash. It won’t be enough to make him quit but will make it sting a bit more.</p>
<p>Of course, you should discuss the drinking situation with him as well since although he was caught these couple of times he’s probably been involved in drinking far more times. You’ll need to keep on top of it enough to find out just how much he’s really drinking and to see if it impacts his grades and progress, exposes him to DUIs/crashes if he’s driving, drinking to the point of passing out, etc., and then may want to take additional action in that event.</p>
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<p>I didn’t see anything in the OP that stated he wasn’t there to learn or that his grades were affected.</p>
<p>Just curious, MJP2558, how did you find out about the violations? Did your son tell you voluntarily? Or, did the school notify you? If he told you himself, I’d say that’s better than if he had kept it from you. </p>
<p>As a freshman, my son was caught drinking off campus by a city cop, not a campus cop. Regardless, the violation came to the Dean’s attention and son was required to attend 5 alcohol awareness counseling sessions. Your son may have to do something similar. As a family, we considered him too old to punish. But, we did make sure he paid his own fine, court fees, and attorney fees…about $700 total.</p>
<p>What are we talking about here…Was he caught having a beer, or was he caught drunk, acting inappropriately. I know when D1 visited one LAC, they said students were fined if they were caught with alcohol whether they were drinking or not.</p>
<p>Wow,many opinions on what to do are quite drastic…while not condoning underage drinking, it exists,as WE ALL KNOW, been there,done that…having him get a PT job will not prevent his drinking one iota…may give him more pocket money to buy beer…D1 got caught freshmen year,fined $50, though we found out…Told her we don’t condone it,but we are not stupid enough to think this fine will prevent any future alcohol consumption…Part of college life,preach moderation and tell them NEVER to get in car with someone who has drank ANY alcohol…D1 is not a big drinker,so we are not so concerned about her bingeing or getting drunk…If your son appears to have a drinking problem, then other solutions are necessary… Best of luck</p>
<p>If you assume every kid in college who has some drinks is “not there to learn” you might as well just close them all down–from Harvard and MIT on down. Did we just go back in time to the 1600’s? And I am sure that covers most of you if you went to college.</p>
<p>Dang, people. Nothing in the OP’s post suggests the kid isn’t learning. For all we know, he’s a straight-A student. That said, three times indicates an issue. What was the span of time for these three incidents?</p>
<p>Not sure if i getting caught three times is necessarily an issue,might be dumb luck,or being careless in and around his dorm</p>
<p>S1 got caught in first sem. of freshman year,(he) paid a fine and paid to go to on campus alcohol ed. classes. He said by the end of freshman year almost every guy on his dorm floor had gotten caught and attended the alc. ed. classes at some point. </p>
<p>Since he handled it and we didn’t know until much later that it even happened, there wasn’t much we could do but say…be careful. We knew telling him not to drink beer at college (big state u) would be ridiculous.<br>
BTW, he was on full merit scholarship and graduated with honors so drinking beer in college has nothing to do with “not being there to learn”. Also worked a 20 hr./week p/t job and took care of all his expenses…nothing we could say but “be careful”.</p>
<p>The problem I see is that he is not taking the rules seriously and continues to get caught. My fear would be that the next time the school will make an example of him and boot him for having so many violations. You have to figure out how to operate within the system, since the school is obviously taking it seriously. The attitude of “the rules don’t apply to me” can get you in real trouble, as some of my family members know…
The drinking needs to happen in a way that doesn’t result in getting busted.</p>
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IMHO, he’s an adult and it’s up to others to “punish” him now. Which they did. </p>
<p>If you are supporting him financially, is “follow the rules” one of the conditions of his support? If so, you could withdraw some of the support based on his lack of adherence to the conditions. If not and he is doing ok academically, then I’d let it lie.</p>
<p>My son was caught the first night he spent on campus! We had an interesting conversation that evening - at a volume on my end that probably would have reached him without a telephone. He was embarrassed about the transgression, and about being foolish enough to be caught. </p>
<p>No further punishments, but no further violations since then either. He doesn’t have a car and his performance has improved every semester, so it is now just an amusing family anecdote - though I have no illusions that he presently abstains. Because the drinking age law is arbitrary, i don’t care about it as much as I do about whether he understands the risks and dangers of drinking and driving and of binge drinking. Students also important to understand the rules of the college and not to flout them; i.e., don’t blatantly disregard the generally lax rules so that you get caught. To me, the moral issue is the avoidance of harm to self and others caused by extreme intoxication, not whether a college student has a few beers every now and then.</p>