Perhaps unbeknowst to you, if your son or daughter is a college freshman, he or she is at risk for unintended injury; some can be tragic. We are already reading about freshman who have been injured or killed. The risk is not just among kids with histories of reckless conduct. Often it is students who are studious and responsible who are at greatest risk. That’s because they have often avoided risky behavior in the past and probably had parents who monitored them closely. Often students underestimate risks when on their own. They see others engaged in risky behavior and figure it must be ok because nobody is objecting or appearing to be concerned. They figure that safeguards must be in place and the conduct would not be tolerated if it were really risky. So they lean on balcony banisters figuring if they weren’t sturdy someone would have fixed them; they dive into water with unknown depths figuring others are doing it and it wouldn’t be allowed if unsafe; they get into a car with a reckless driver cause all their friends are; they do things they would never have done a year earlier because they wouldn’t have had the opportunity or they would have assessed the situation as unsafe. They don’t realize the extent to which the safeguards have been lifted. Nobody is there to catch them. They didn’t realize how reliable the catchers they had at home really were. These first few months are the most risky of their recent lives. It’s worth a discussion.
Do you have a question? I’m not sure I understand what youmwant us to do with this post.
I would say that the time to think about this issue is long before your child is a high school senior.
I never followed my kids around, ready to catch them. With 3 of them and one of me, it just wasn’t feasible, nor did I feel it was a good way to raise my kids. If they chose to not study for a test, they soon learned the consequences. If they went to a party where alcohol was being served, they saw what happened to teenagers who drank. There has been enough tragedy in our family for them to see what happens when bad choices are made. This includes the possibility of those choices leading to death.
I actually think you have a good point with this post. Oftentimes, it’s the “good” kids who no one thinks to discuss this kind of stuff with. I am notorious (and likely super annoying) for bombarding my kids with cautionary tales. My daughter rolls her eyes and says she will never find herself in those types of situations, and I say “too bad, I am telling you anyway.” My kids have plenty of freedom, and at least I know I did my best to warn them. That’s just me though.
I feel pretty lucky in some ways, because my parents literally never told me a thing about life, and I seemed to have got through it all reasonably unscathed. There were plenty of times though when I wished someone had talked to me about whatever. I think at the end of the day though, parents do try to tell their kids what they think is important, and leave them to figure out the rest.
thumper1, I don’t necessarily want you to do anything. Thanks though.
There are a number of blogs that delineate some ways parents can reduce the risk their children are exposed to. I don’t think I am allowed to post links to blogs here but readers can google them. Being aware of this early stretch as being risky and discussing the transition and associated risks is a good start. Keeping lines of communication in the early months of college can also help. Frank discussions about parental concerns could help. Naturally what is most helpful will differ depending upon the specifics of each student parent relationship. I’m not suggesting “helicopter parenting” but discussion about potential risks may help students avoid them.
I think this is a good point but I also agree that senior year of HS is late to start talking about this kind of stuff.
“They figure that safeguards must be in place and the conduct would not be tolerated if it were really risky.”
Personally, I don’t believe they “figure” anything. Teens and young adults are notorious for not having the most mature thought processes. I can only comment through observation, but the kids I know who got into trouble/danger as college freshman (or HSers) are those kids who (1) think they are invincible and (2) have parents who are in denial that teenagers are doing these things. Maybe it’s because we are strong public school proponents, but I know that my kids are exposed to everything from drugs to sex to triple dog dares in school and out, so we’ve been having talks for years. Yes, I get the sighs and the eye rolls during my times with them, but I hope that by the time they are making their own decisions that they have heard my voice enough that it drifts to the forefront of their thoughts every now and then to remind them of how stupid kids can be.
There is a huge difference between communicating knowledge and helicopter hovering.
I think this is a good point to make. I think a lot of kids these days are raised with very good habits in a structured world that replaces many options for independence with rewards for good behavior. They get such good results from doing the right thing that they don’t bother misbehaving. College life removes the myriad small positive reinforcers from high school (extra credit, class rank) and a world of other choices suddenly opens up. There’s no problem sneaking past mom or your little brother if you come home late, drunk or with a friend. And the kids who didn’t drink or fool around have less experience than most with knowing how to protect themselves so they have more to learn with fewer safety measures around them. There’s a real difference between hearing about the bad behavior of “those kids” in high school and becoming one of those kids in college, even experimentally.
The wildest freshmen I met at college were kids of ministers, students who had been valedictorians or of similar high rank, and children of helicopter parents. By “wild” I mean most likely to be harmed by excessive drinking (and all that comes with that) and harmed by sexual promiscuity. That is all anecdotal, of course. I don’t have statistics to show me who is now engaging in that type of risky behavior today.
It’s certainly a conversation worthy of repetition, but probably should occur far earlier.
Do you have a source for this claim?
My dad was a lay minister in a very strict denomination (the church doesn’t believe in paid pastors) and I was ranked #1 in my class. Yeah, I went kind of “wild,” but for me that mainly meant drinking on the weekends. I think my strict upbringing still helped - there was no way I would have tried any kind of drugs. I knew I would be in big enough trouble if my parents had found out I was drinking! My other big rebellious move was to date an atheist, because I knew it wouldn’t matter WHOM I dated if he didn’t go to the particular “right” church.
That my good kid sometimes flaunted rules and did things I disliked was actually a good thing. He learned to think about what he was doing instead of just being a rule follower who went wild in college. He was less prone to do the stupid/dangerous stuff because he didn’t feel the need to break away from being perfect. Rigid upbringings are not unique to religious households, btw.
Sometimes I wish my kid was a little wilder. LOL. Caution is her virtue, and party isn’t in her vocabulary. (It was in mine!) She’s a 40 year old librarian trapped in a 21 year old body. About the craziest she gets…is putting on a sexyish costume for the dungeons and dragon boys when she leads them on a fantasy quest, and makes fondue in her crockpot. One time my ears pricked up because she said she’s been out all night. Turns out she was conducting research with frog biologists in the arboretum. In the three years she’s been at college, she’s had drinks exactly three times, and never to excess. She won’t try pot until she’s 25 because one of her professors lectured on the the effects of thc on developing brains. Her idea of “rewarding herself for a hard week” is going to the used book store for a couple of paperbacks and picking up some “chef’s special” sushi with a coupon! The idea of dance clubs, football games, bars and parties gives her a headache. She’s tried them all, and wasn’t impressed. She lives a very different life than I did at that age, but it seems to work for her. She is the only college student I know…who owns a deviled egg plate…and uses it regularly. She has a collection of super brainy friends…who love her deviled eggs, and her fondue, and her costumes, and swap paperbacks they’ve finished. They have movie nights and carve pumpkins and play board games. I don’t think my child is a closet Mormon, but I’m starting to wonder. LOL:)
In other words, people with poor judgment and limited impulse control are more likely to die or be seriously injured. Yes, that is true.
@MaryGJ Your daughter is happy and enjoys her life, no need to feel she’s missing out on something, her life is just different from what you may have expected.
My D is very similar. I would say it’s very likely she’ll graduate from college without having tried alcohol or drugs and any number of typical college escapades. She has lots of friends and they do things similar to your D’s friend group.
It doesn’t sound to me that “caution” is their overriding quality, more like thoughtfulness and confidence. It takes both of those to walk such a different path.
@thumper1 I don’t get your comment
Isn’t it enough to post something as a topic for discussion? I’ve never seen such a query.
I was a good kid. Mostly straight-As, high ACT, blah blah blah.
If my parents had waited until my senior year of high school to talk to me about risky things, oh boy would they (and I) have been in trouble.
Using a condom every time was pounded into my brain at a young age. By senior year, this would have been way too late.
Never ever getting into a car with a driver who had been drinking. Again, we spoke early and often.
Don’t be stupid and do hard drugs- especially when you don’t know where they came from. By middle school, I had already been offered hard drugs more than once by neighborhood kids.
That being said, I had very few rules growing up. I was allowed (and encouraged!) to fail. And fail I did, more than once but I always knew that no matter how bad things had gotten, my parents would be there to get me as soon as I called. They didn’t come running until I asked them to though.
With that said, I am the calm child of wild-child parents. Sure, I tried weed in high school (wasn’t my thing). I drank, but stuck to beer (mom made me a beer snob). Had I been in many other families, my actions would have broken a ton of rules. But my parents learned by doing (and failing) and they figured I should, too. They felt even more comfortable since I had a cell phone by middle school whereas they, obviously, had no such thing.
Lol, yes, I guess “wild” is a relative term. 
And it bears repeating that back then, 18 was the legal age in Texas. That also puts your “wildness” in context.
@MaryGJ lol my son is the same, although he’s only a high school junior, so I guess this can change, but I’m a fairly permissive parent. I’ve actually offered him alcohol on more than one occasion so he wouldn’t consider it a forbidden fruit and learn to drink responsibly before he goes to college (it’s actually legal in our state to drink with parents at home). He refused.
Yes, I would not have taken a sip in college if the drinking age had been 21! I waited until I was 19 to drink anything. My kids have already mentioned they don’t know what they’ll do at their weddings since my family doesn’t approve of dancing or alcohol!