<p>I'm trying to see how other parents are handling excessive underage drinking. My son is a freshman and in the first week of school he has been awaken nightly at 2 or 3 am by drunk students in the hall. At least twice in the first week, someone has thrown up in the hall and bathroom floor. This means that students with early classes take showers, brush their teeth, etc while stepping over and smelling someone else's vomit. Not a good way to start your day! My son says that there is nothing he can do, the RAs know and don't care and he doesn't want to make trouble on the floor. Anyone have any advice?</p>
<p>Worst of these offenders will flunk out by Thanksgiving. Leave it alone. Your son just needs to learn the ropes. What are we, one week into classes. This is not your problem to work around, it’s his.</p>
<p>No one needs to learn to step over vomit or learn to sleep through drunken noise brawls several days a week. Is he at a smaller school or large? I ask because it’s one thing to try and control the behavior of a 2 or 3 story dorm with a total of 120 people in as opposed to the behavior of a high rise. I would encourage your son and you as well if you like to complain, complain, complain. </p>
<p>For kids who don’t drink, I think it can be really disturbing to see/hear/smell those that do. I hate that the kids who don’t drink are expected to “adjust” or “deal” with those who do - why not the other way around???</p>
<p>Perhaps the college will open up room switches soon. If that’s the case, maybe your S can request moving to the substance-free dorm.</p>
<p>It will be better in few weeks. It’s the new found freedom those new kids are not used to. I equiped D1 with a Bose noise cancellation earphone her freshman year and she had single. It worked really well. As far as the vomit in the hallway, it’s not your kid’s job to clean up, don’t breath when he walks by.</p>
<p>If it’s not alchol, it’s next door neighbor(roommate) having very noisy sex marathon. It’s a downside of living in a dorm.</p>
<p>I agree with oldfort that this should settle down in a few weeks but it is still really tough to be living in those conditions. He should get earplugs and maybe try to shower later in the day instead.</p>
<p>I also agree with oldfort. That stuff will prob. continue to happen on weekends but should slow down during the week once the newness of it wears off and classwork gets serious. </p>
<p>S1’s dorm room was across from the hall bathroom in a substance free all freshman dorm.
He said every weekend, the swinging door to the bathroom was clanking shut constantly all night long and there was most often vomit on the floor between his room and the bathroom on weekend mornings. He said he got used to the noise and could sleep right thru it. I guess he just walked around the puke.</p>
<p>I hate to sound cold, but I feel that this is your son’s issue to deal with, not yours. He needs to learn to handle these kinds of problems on his own. And, it might be that it bothers you more than it bothers him. Sometimes we parents interpret kids issues through our lenses. For example, my D seems to think a nutritious breakfast is a red bull and a granola bar. I beg to differ - but it’s out of my jurisdiction now.</p>
<p>The freshman tend to drink too much at most colleges. It seems to subside a bit each year and generally by jr and senior year they drink on weekends when they go out. My kids are not heavy drinkers at all but they all think freshman drink too much.</p>
<p>I also think things will let up a bit once school demands increase. The heavy drinkers usually weed themselves out by the first semester.</p>
<p>Welcome to dorm life.</p>
<p>yeah welcome to dorm life. at my school that is common behavior for everyone for all four years, and yes very few people fail out or leave.</p>
<p>I asked my now senior a year or so ago about this. He said yes that the freshman party alot until the work and classes start to crank up. He also said in general the dorms are noisy 24/7 and that is why he moved out sophomore year. My now freshman has been at college for over a week and says his dorm is not very noisy (and his roommates study “alot” already…so his room is pretty quiet so that was good news.) I have no doubt that all 4 of them have been to a party or two studious or not His freshman suites are designed with the bathroom and an corridor between the dorm hallway and the bedroom doors that buffers the hall noise from the sleeping rooms. Good design. I don’t remember too much excessive drinking back in my day, but the drinking age was 18 so the excitement had probably worn off by college time. For many freshman it is the very first time they have had access to alcohol so they are most likely unaware of how quickly you can go from happy to drunk.</p>
<p>i’m with abasket on this one. this is UNDERAGE DRINKING and it’s illegal. complain a lot (in person if u need to and if u’re able). </p>
<p>i disagree strongly with the “suck it up, it’s college” mentality. people are paying to live there and nightly “partying” or loud obnoxious sex is not okay. i think it’s weird (and unfortunate) that so many parents have caved in on this one. these kids aren’t newbies to alcohol, it started in high school and the parents looked the other way. ridiculous.</p>
<p>i can understand the argument for alcohol as it is illegal, but how can you stop the sex since that would be going against that person’s rights?</p>
<p>I know at my older son’s school (small school) the freshman dorms have a zero alcohol tolerance in the freshman dorms, no empties visible and all kinds of things to keep alcohol OUT of the dorm. The RAs are watching activities within the dorm walls. But colleges have kids from 16-25+ and freshman leave their dorms. If you had a dry campus the kids would leave the campus. It’s fine to complain if the situation is clearly intolerable, but I have to believe that colleges across the country are wracking their brains trying to figure out solutions to having a campus filled with half under-age kids and half of-age kids.</p>
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<p>I would hazard a guess the kids barfing are ones who have not experienced alcohol to any degree. I can’t imagine very many kids want to drink until they barf and I think it isn’t good to make assumptions about what kids parents did or didn’t do in high school. Kids typically try on all sorts of personalities and behaviors when they go away to college and join an entirely new group of peers.</p>
<p>As a former college RA - there is a hierarchy. If the resident assistants won’t address it, tell your son to go over their heads and talk to the residence hall director. If the RHD won’t do anything, or go directly to the housing office and complain. The RAs can’t control off-campus behavior but they can enforce quiet hours (2 or 3 am should always be quiet regardless of the day), they can hold meetings to address the problem with individual students or with the whole hall and they can threaten to get the underage drinkers into serious trouble (legal AND with the school) if they don’t keep their drunken behavior to themselves. RAs can also notify maintenance staff that there is v</p>
<p>Don’t assume that it’s going to be better in a few weeks, either. Some students get worse as the semester wears on, especially when holiday parties come. Also, don’t assume that those kids are going to flunk out, lol. Many students drink really hard during the week and do just fine.</p>
<p>For any parent who do not think partying or sexing is ok, the alternative is to move your kid off campus. I do not believe any of it is an acceptable behavior, but how much energy do you want to spend on it. My daughter lived next door to someone who regularly entertained every night until 2-4 am. The neighbor was not drinking or having sex, but just had a lot of people over. D1 also complained about how dirty the bathroom was, not from throwing up, but just girls been messy.</p>
<p>I lived through all of that (like most of you) when I went to college. I chose to take an attitude of if I didn’t make a big deal of it then D1 would make light of it. I packed a noise cancellation earphone for her and got her a single (something we could control). Those were the only things I could do for her. I could have encouraged her to complain and set those partiers straight, but I think it would have been wasted energy. Instead of focusing on what she couldn’t change, I encouraged her to focus on other things. In a few weeks she adapted, she didn’t become a party animal, and ended up with excellent GPA freshman year.</p>
<p>My son (very social and a big partier, but likes his personal space, too) had a single freshman year and still had trouble with noise in the dorm all night long. He was somewhat shocked. No one seems to have early classes anymore (I swear I had 8am classes all through college- not every single day, but definitely early classes…) and, of course, no Friday classes. He had been at boarding school and was used to some order in the dorms, and college was somewhat of a shock. He really hated it- and this was at an academically intense school. It’s a problem.</p>
<p>OP:
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<p>Your son sounds like a nice guy, but the truth is that he is not the one making trouble on the floor; the kids who are drinking illegally and breaking the college’s rules are.</p>
<p>I agree with another poster who essentially said that if the RAs refuse to do their jobs, your son should contact someone who will.</p>
<p>Another poster wrote:
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<p>This is true in the sense that the OP shouldn’t call the college on behalf of her son–but surely the OP can still give her son advice when he asks.</p>
<p>If the kids are coming back to the dorm drunk there may be nothing a “youngish” RA can do depending on the college and their particular rules regarding drunk behavior. However, the OPs son should read his handbook and see what there is regarding quiet hours, RAs can certainly police that situation so kids that aren’t up until all hours can get some sleep. I know for my S1 the noise bothered him more than other peoples drinkinig behaior or lack thereof.</p>