<p>BA Dad, I've been reading this thread without a post. You have handled this situation with grace and intelligence. If my family should ever experience a similarly difficult situation, I think I will have learned something from you. Thank you!</p>
<p>I second rrah's post.</p>
<p>Kudos and best wishes.</p>
<p>I'm a bit surprised by the alumni network thing. When I became class secretary I was given a huge list of women who had been in our class at some point. (80 graduated there were at least 110 names on that list.) Some names I barely recognized and it included several who'd been expelled.</p>
<p>She may be excluded from the alumni network not because she didn't "graduate" but because she was expelled. Moving from the area, withdrawing due to medical reasons, etc. are very different than a disciplinary expulsion.</p>
<p>BayAreaDad - </p>
<p>I have read your story from the beginning - I am no where near as eloquent as some other parents on here but I am going to try and express my own thoughts for you.
From what I read - I think you are a terrific dad with a terrific daughter. Maybe today she isn't so terrific but she will be again someday soon.</p>
<p>Having raised and finishing to raise 4 daughters of my own - when I read stories such as yours my immediate thoughts are there but for the grace of God go I.<br>
Please look ahead and encourage your daughter to look ahead to a bright future. These are tough times but they will pass and she will learn and grow. Her life is just beginning with a setback.</p>
<p>I encourage you to get counseling. I assume she will probably get counseling but you parents need it too. You are so honest when you talk about what your daughter has lost the end of her senior year and not moving on next year - you need to grieve this as well.<br>
I know you guys are planning out what to do next - but spend some time NOT doing that. Go out to a movie or amusement park and speak not of school or the future for a while - just spend time together.
You are a good and loving father and that unconditional love will support you and her.</p>
<p>My biggest wish is that 10, 15 or 20 years from now at those family dinners - all of this will have been just a blip on the screen of life.</p>
<p>Bay Area Dad, only you and your family, with professional guidance, can make the best decision for your D and I wish you and her the best of luck in her future endeavors. It's probably of small consolation, but I know young students who got in way more trouble than your D, including a dental student busted for dealing drugs, and who turned out just fine.</p>
<p>However, suppose she is seen by a mental health professional and, in his or her opinion, the alcohol incident was an isolated one and the stimulant was used one time as a "study aid," not as a recreational high. Would you reconsider your stance that she shouldn't go away if it is determined that your D has no CD or substance abuse problem? I would hope so and that you are not swayed by the mentality that use or experimentation necessarily equals abuse. As I have repeatedly said, the reality of college life is that a lot of kids are going to drink and a substantial amount will use drugs. In fact, many of them, like your D, used in high school. If every kid who experimented in high school was sent to community college, we wouldn't be having the anguished discussions in other threads about kids who didn't get into their top choices because there would be plenty of room at the top. OTOH, it would be near impossible to get into community college.</p>
<p>Just some food for thought and I again send you and your family my best wishes for a bright and successful future.</p>
<p>I think the topic of the alumni status and network needs to be off the table for now. I suspect BADad might have some concerns about sharing too much information on that issue and would like to leave that for a later time after the immediate concerns are addressed. I'm sure the school will be willing to reconsider after they see some positive steps by the family. It's a relatively small world out there in prep-school-land and we need to be a little careful here.</p>
<p>You handled all of our advice with grace, Not Bad-dad, so I know you will also sort out the best efforts of your future family therapist and advice givers with equal grace and thought. From me... hearing about hillbilly heroin pills stolen from parents' closets and taking down many young adults locally and a very shocking/rare death in my neighborhood from stimulant abuse at a not-that-unusual-high school party sans parents gone Bad. </p>
<p>Your story led many other families to share how they got through crises where substance abuse/youthful flaunting of laws/rules interfered with their own darling sons' and daughters' maturation and education. Plus for those of us over 40 and 50, many of us can't help but scan our memories of that era in our lives and know that most of us simply were never "caught" and held to a painful and public accounting a few times ourselves. </p>
<p>Times have changed. Many drugs are more powerful than in our era and more consequential if used recreationally. No tolerance is the standard in workplace and school. Our lovely and protected children probably still have only the ghost of an understanding of how our nation's laws create full prisons where US citizens who have big drug issues and histories languish...and our teens cannot comprehend that the rules are there to make sure they are never exposed to criminal prosecution on top of the basic premise/standard of choosing health over substance abuse.</p>
<p>Your daughter is the same young woman of talent and promise that she was a month ago, and I think you were wise to align yourselves with the school on principle in your exit interviews. They, too, have been goodly parents and teachers who loved and appreciated her, and I fully expect to learn that she has been awarded her diploma and status as an alum after a period of reflection and treatment and time that you and her mother will figure out and help define with professionals of your choosing.</p>
<p>She has been through a firestorm and does have grieving to do and much to process but she will be stronger and will enter college with an entirely new sense of personal responsibility for her own destiny when the time is right.</p>
<p>please drop by with some of your eloquent updates when you can and thanks for your honesty and forbearance on the CC boards</p>
<p>MoWC is right. I could identify a number of prep schools off the top of my head by a description of their alumni activities/networks. I hadn't thought of that. I just brought it up because the school's policies were so very different from those of other schools I knew about (where, often, 40 years on, the prodigal sons and daughters are at the center of the networks and even sometimes are big donors). Let's drop that topic.</p>
<p>I would like to echo Faline2's sentiments. Your situation has struck an emotional chord with so many of us that seldom happens on CC. You were courageous in your initial post, and thoughtful and honest in your later ones. Good fathers aren't perfect, out of love they just do the best job they can. Your daughter is a very fortunate young woman in so many ways. I wish you and your family all the best.</p>
<p>This thread and a few others have contributed so much to my parenting. 330 posts into the discussion, all of us react on some level to each piece of advice and comment. It helps us to process what we would do in the same situation, and to act with compassion toward kids and parents going through these things. I'm a better parent because of this thread. Thanks BayAreaDad, and those who are taking the time to connect with his family.</p>
<p>I add again my good wishes and expressions of admiration. And, yes, I feel the "There but for the grace of G_d " vibe very strongly. </p>
<p>I don't know what drug is involved in the OP's D case, but an article in the NYTimes last summer about adderall abuse said that 20% of all US college students had used it at least once. </p>
<p>In trying to find that article, I came across another about adderall use among PROFS!!!<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/weekinreview/09carey.html?scp=4&sq=adderall&st=nyt%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/weekinreview/09carey.html?scp=4&sq=adderall&st=nyt</a></p>
<p>Apparently, one problem is that for a lot of years, college health care gave out these meds very easily. Kids learned what the symptoms of ADD are and went in and described themselves as suffering from these symptoms. They got prescriptions. Some kids profiled in the article said that they felt under pressure to use them to compete with kids who use them. </p>
<p>I sometimes disagree with the Ethicist column in the NYTimes. One time I did was when someone wrote in saying that a friend's father, a shrink, had given his son adderall to study for the LSAT. He asked his friend to share. His friend refused, saying that it was illegal and unethical. To my disgust, Cohen (the columnist) said it was illegal, but not unethical for the friend to share his adderall and/or for the person who wanted the adderall to use it without a prescription. I wonder how many high school and college kids read that column?link
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30wwln-ethicist-t.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=adderall&st=nyt&oref=slogin%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30wwln-ethicist-t.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=adderall&st=nyt&oref=slogin</a></p>
<p>Now, it is a violation of every ethical code I know of for a shrink to treat a member of his own family--and Cohen DID say that. If the son really had ADD or anything else that warranted use of the drug, I'm sure dad could have steered him to someone else to write the prescription. The fact he wrote it himself to me is pretty good proof that he just wanted to help give his kid an "edge." </p>
<p>I think this stuff has become like steroids. A lot of athletes felt that since so many other people were using them, they had to in order to compete. Based on the NYTimes article, a lot of college kids feel that way about adderall.</p>
<p>Adderall and other stimulants can be very dangerous to those with heart conditions or other medical problems. You just don't know the whole story when you give or sell a drug of this sort to someone.</p>
<p>Also, it isn't just profs using these stimulents. Or students or athletes. Many who are trying to do more than their bodies are letting them do are pushing themselves with these drugs. It is a real problem.</p>
<p>Bay Area Dad,</p>
<p>I think all of use who have followed your story, contributed our own musings/advice/good wishes have been personally touched in some way. Some may have looked back on their college days and seen themselves in your daughter or in your response (either because of similarities or because of extreme contrasts). Some of us are parents who have dealt with similar (or worse) situations. Some of us are parents (like me) of teenagers heading off to college where we know the temptations will be great, and we can only hope that we have prepared them to cope with peer pressure and make good choices. We hope that when a situation presents itself they hear our voices in the back of their mind and maybe use us as an excuse to make the right choice, even if their own inclinations lead them elsewhere. "My parents would kill me if I did that!" is a time honored excuse. All too many of use know of friends or relatives (of many ages) who have succumbed to addictions and/or harmed or killed themselves or others because of bad choices.</p>
<p>I am continually impressed by the collective wisdom of cc posters. You serve as a model to all of us in your handling, however imperfect, of this situation. I do hope you will save some of these postings for a future time (perhaps when she is a parent herself) when your D might benefit from knowing what you went through and how you strove/are striving to help her.</p>
<p>My kid's college health center is very strict about giving out meds. The process for getting anything like Ritalin or Adderall is very extensive and it's hard to pull one over on them. I had to send my son back when he had a severe URI (cold) with some airway impediment just to assure that he got the proper meds which history has proven that he needs!</p>
<p>Your daughter is truly blessed to have a father like you.</p>
<p>I wish you and your daugher all of the best today and in the weeks, months and years to come.</p>
<p>BADad</p>
<p>I didn't realize "smart" kids took prescription drugs to do better on tests. How dumb am I?</p>
<p>Because of this thread, I spoke to DS about it. He denies it goes on within his circle of friends (and I believe him), but I'm so glad we had the discussion as I'm sure he will be exposed to more of this type of behavior when he's in college.</p>
<p>Thank you for sharing your family's story with all of us. You seemed to be handling it with such grace......</p>
<p>Fresno, take a look on the internet. It's become a big problem. We used to drink the coffee and take the Nodoze. But that makes you jumpy. When you are short on time and need to get a lot done and have trouble focusing on the material, the hype of these "mental steroids' becomes tempting. And the $$ cost is cheap or free and the dealer is one of your dorm buddies. How harmful can it be,is the thought. </p>
<p>I am not talking about kids who are on those drugs as prescriptions who need it. My friends daughter is on a very heavy dose (60mg) of adderall. It is very dangerous for someone to take that amount without medical supervision and having no experience with the med. It was prescribed for a heavy duty problem. That is partly why my friend was so upset when she discovered the abuse and sharing. If someone had a heart condition or mixed with the wrong stuff....</p>
<p>I asked my S about it, and he said, "Oh yeah, study drugs." He said that he has heard it is common in college and at some HSs, but that he doesn't think it is an issue at his school, because things just aren't that intense.</p>