<p>The tour guides at two schools my kids recently visited (Grinnell and Haverford) made a point of talking about how they don't lock their doors, feel comfortable leaving backpacks with iPods and laptops outside the door when they go in for lunch, don't lock their bikes, etc.</p>
<p>For some reason, both my kids reacted very negatively to this. They felt it was evidence of naivete. I said that if there was a real theft problem, then obviously people would reverse course and start locking up belonging -- but the proof of this working is obviously that it continues. They noted that at two other campuses (Gtown and GWU) students locked their doors and didn't leave their belongings about. I said "Do you think it's possible that it's because Grinnell is in the middle of a cornfield, Haverford's in a well-to-do suburban area and Gtown and GWU are both in the middle of a big city?" Oh. LOL.</p>
<p>Anyway -- my H and I are old-school -- we'd lock our stuff up and we're not quite as trusting -- but hey, if that's what the campus culture is, that's what it is. We can't figure out if it's really a campus culture thing, a generational thing, what. Just curious if any other parents / kids had reactions to this. H and I can't quite place why our kids are so angsty over this one.</p>
<p>My kids went to a HS, where they always talk at Open House about how honest the kids are, etc. Our kids say that’s a load of BULL and that would agree with the line of reasoning that says, “In God we trust, for all others, we require ID” or “Trust in Allah but tether your camel.” You get the drift. My hubby believes invisible is much better than agile & has encouraged our kids to stay & keep their belongings out of sight to discourage theft. It has worked so far (except for when S left his phone & wallet on the gym bench when he went to the restroom).</p>
<p>My kids get annoyed when they heard the spiel about how safe their campus was when they KNOW thefts do occur & kids would mysteriously end up with the textbooks & possessions of others, even in their small “trusting” and “safe” school. I guess they feel it’s misrepresentation–yes, it is somewhat safer perhaps than the general public but still not as safe as its touted. Our D routinely had mechanical pencils she left behind in class stolen. They also lost/had stolen textbooks & other things.</p>
<p>I think that this may work in some places, and that in some schools you don’t need to lock up your backpack etc. Leaving dorm rooms open seems alien to me, but maybe it works there.</p>
<p>I went to public school, and a backpack in the hall would have been gone in the blink of an eye (even if it only had school books in it.) Ditto for DH. I am the one who tells my D not to trust and to lock up etc. I lived in a few different cities, and if you don’t lock up your apartment (and sometimes even if you locked it) you would be burglarized at some point.</p>
<p>Theft rarely occurs means something different than theft never occurs ever. My kids operate on the assumption that if it can happen it will - to them - and act accordingly. Without doubt, some schools probably have a better record than others in that regard, but still …</p>
<p>Good for your kids. Cautious is good. However trustworthy the majority of students are, it only takes one. </p>
<p>I would consider my daughter’s campus to be relatively safe (kind of in the middle of a cornfield I guess). But my daughter’s first year on campus there was a rape in one of the dorms. As far as I recall the rapist was never caught and it was believed to be someone who should not have been in the dorms unaccompanied (probably let in by some too trusting soul). </p>
<p>I agree with the “trust in Allah but tether your camel” idea.</p>
<p>When I visited my son at the U. of Chicago in October (I also visited him this past weekend, but we spent the entire time in the Loop and parts north, and never set foot in Hyde Park), I noticed as we left his dorm room that he didn’t lock his door, and (of course) said something about it. He got annoyed with me, and told me that nobody he knew in his residence hall locked their doors regularly, and he didn’t either. I didn’t push it. (Other than telling him that if someone steals his laptop out of his unlocked dorm room, I’m not buying him a new one!) I can’t help wondering, though, if part of his reason might be the fact that he’s always had a tendency to lose things like keys, and is afraid that if he locks his room behind him he won’t be able to get back in. On that subject, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut!</p>
<p>At D’s brand new dorm this year there were quite a few problems when kids moved in. It turned out that a girl down the hall had a door lock that wouldn’t open (or wouldn’t lock, I forget which) but because of the multitude of new opening issues, they only allowed rooms to file one maintenance request at a time, and apparently that wasn’t the highest priority one for that room. One of those wonderful things that I was glad I didn’t hear about until Thanksgiving break, after it had long been fixed.</p>
<p>I think it’s a problem only if the campus culture is such that if a student does lock his room or makes a point of never leaving possessions unattended, this is frowned upon by others as an indication of lack of trust. I can see how this could become an issue between roommates, for example.</p>
<p>My offspring are accustomed to large universities where you simply don’t leave things lying around and you lock the door to your room when you go to the bathroom.</p>
<p>And I live across from a dairy farm in the middle of the boonies.m </p>
<p>It’s just plain caution. I’m not going to leave my valuable stuff sitting around for someone to come by and take. I won’t risk it.</p>
<p>I have a cheapo used 99 blazer and I don’t have anything in it worth anything usually. But on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I leave my laptop in it because I have my DE class after regular school, and I always lock my doors then. </p>
<p>I’m always cautious about that stuff. Partly because things like my computer have irreplaceable things stored on them. Partly because I don’t have the money to replace things like that. </p>
<p>I would never (and will never) just leave my doors unlocked at college.</p>
<p>Some people (most people) did that at my college. I certainly did and in four years I never had anything stolen. I would get nervous about leaving something expensive out in the library though, becauseo our library was open to anyone and not just students used it. Still, I would leave my computer there if I went to the campus center, but maybe put it in a bag or cover it or ask someone to watch it for me. But even though it was commonplace on our campus (and I definitely talked about it on the tours) not everyone did it. Some students felt more comfortable with a locked door, some locked there door while they were sleeping (keeps your drunk fellow students from waking you up).</p>
<p>Pizzagirl-I think your kids are smart. Even back in the old days when I was in school, I had friends who didn’t lock their dorm rooms and had money and items stolen. On friend woke up from a nap and a strange guy was in her room. He ran off but still…gives me the creeps to thing what might have happened.</p>
<p>Even if the students are honest there are people who hang around campuses with intent to commit crimes. You can’t be too careful.</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, D has some friends who leave their dorm room “open all of the time”. I have told her NOT to do this.</p>
<p>Haverford has a very strict Honor Code, and the fact that students don’t lock their stuff up is testament to the Honor Code. When I visited Haverford and asked about the fact that so many backpacks were just lying around, and the dorms were unlocked, the tour guide answered that they were very proud of the fact that no one had to lock up stuff because of the strictness of the Honor Code and the fact that everyone obeyed it. My question would be, do the professors lock their offices or do they trust in the Honor Code as well?</p>
<p>Interesting. The college my S attends has a printed and posted safety policy and it suggests always locking up.</p>
<p>I wonder if the reaction is more about having a sense of “my space,” like an adult in an apartment. As an adult, would you have a general unlocked door policy at your apartment? I wouldn’t. </p>
<p>Perhaps it is a desire to have a “more grown up” arrangement rather than an open door policy like being at summer camp or a church youth retreat. </p>
<p>I recall discussing the insurance issues relating to stuff in the dorm especially the computer with my son. I also mentioned that he was responsible to keep up with his stuff like his computer and bicycle as a young adult at college. He said don’t worry he already had a lock system for the bike and would keep the computer locked up.</p>
<p>Perhaps more than just feeling the students are naive, they may have thought “childish.” I really have no idea.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the housing situation too. If I lived in a big dorm housing block with 100 people on each floor, I would always lock my door. There’s no way I can know all of those people well enough (not to mention their friends) to feel like I can trust them with my stuff). </p>
<p>At Smith though, you live in “houses” usually somewhere around 40-60 people each (some as small as 12, one or two as large as 100), so you do get to know your housemates very well. You leave your bathroom stuff out in the cubbies in the bathroom, your shoes in the hall, and often your door open.</p>
<p>I went to a relatively small rural school with a strict honor code and if a student stole something he was expelled, not for the semester but forever. Students left stuff around all the time, sometimes for days. I locked my dorm room mostly to prevent pranks. OTOH, my son goes to a much larger school in a major city where it seems they have more tourists than students. He is reasonably careful about locking doors (and they may be self-locking), but did have a pair of expensive headphones stolen last year. (He believes that they were stolen by a prospective freshman staying with him, so locks wouldn’t have helped much.) Now he is a bit more cautious, although I would love to inject him with a healthy dose of “street smarts”.</p>
<p>Personally, I found going to a school with a strong honor code made the experience more relaxing. You didn’t need to “stress” if you left something in the library or cafeteria.</p>
<p>I think it entirely depends on the culture and norms of that culture. Having two feet in two different cultures, we find a special distinctiveness about american culture in this regard. </p>
<p>We live in a big, diverse city with theft and crime. But no one I know locks their doors when they are at home. No one has a gun for personal safety. I don’t know anyone who lives in a gated community. There is no security guard at the schools or in the buildings we work in on campus. Our kids don’t even have locks on their lockers. </p>
<p>And we don’t live in a utopia of crimelessness; I’m sure theft rates are actually similar or maybe higher where we live than where some of you live. And you might call us lacking caution or being naive. But we see a giant social and psychological cost to locking everything, surveillance, and assumptions of distrust. </p>
<p>I absolutely believe that self-contained colleges with an honor code would have no problem at all without all the rules, and without having to lock things up. Sure, there might be a small chance that being trusting will bite someone in the butt, but I think the benefits far outweigh the small risk. </p>
<p>Not everything has to be legislated through laws, surveillance, reward and punishment: if people internalize the values and norms of trust (which comes in part from NOT doing it externally), all of that external control is unnecessary.</p>