Parental expectations? Car?

Parents Forum
61

<p>She doesn’t drive- it was the first week of college- as far as I know she had less than a few sips in high school, but I saw photos of what was obviously a bar, with obviously pints of beer in front of her and her friends.
Great.
:rolleyes:
She doesn’t drive- but I had thought that she didn’t drink either.
She is 20 cause she took a year off to work and travel & I am not naive enough to think she completely abstained during that time, although she is on medication which makes it more harmful.</p>

<p>I do realize that some is to be expected- which is why I haven’t said anything yet- I want to find the right balance between being concerned and being aware that she is an adult.
But she will also be 21 at the end of the year & I want to insure there isn’t going to be any stupidity like drinking multiple shots for her bd.</p>

62

<p>^It’s hard, IMHO, to strike the right balance about the drinking once they’re off the college.</p>

<p>Here’s what we have told son:</p>

<p>1) Drinking and driving is strictly forbidden and if we find out he has, he loses the right to drive our car again, ever.</p>

<p>2) If he is caught drinking underage, the consequences can be severe, including losing scholarship money and being kicked out of school. We will not be bailing him out if that situation occurs - he will be suffering the consequences on his own.</p>

<p>3) We explained, repeatedly, what signs to look for that suggest one might have a drinking problem. We’ve also talked at length about the signs of alcohol poisoning or simply having too much to drink. We also discussed how people’s inhibitions are lowered while drinking and how people are much more likely to do things they wouldn’t do while sober. Also, told him to never ‘take advantage’ of a girl who has been drinking.</p>

<p>4) I am putting a card in his wallet with the phone # to the school shuttle service as well as local taxi companies and taping a twenty dollar bill to it. I will encourage him to call for a ride if he has been out drinking and needs a ride. </p>

<p>Beyond that, there’s not much you can do but pray. Other than the underage issue, nothing much changes once they turn 21 - there are still risks involved with drinking - especially with young people. I often see young people all the way through their twenties binge drinking on the weekends. Bars are a popular hangout for the twenty-something crowd.</p>

63

<p>I have also told ShawSon that most kids drink to much one night early in college and get sick but that the mark of a high IQ is that you learn from it and don’t repeat it.</p>

<p>I believe that prohibition by law or parent will not work, so the right strategy is to admit/accept reality with the kids and help guide them away from self-destructive behavior.</p>

<p>With ShawD, I have talked about how much less alcohol is required to cause a girl to become drunk/lose the ability to make smart decisions than for a boy (she is probably 130 pounds or less while ShawSon is 220 or so) and that the consequences of that in college will be ending up having sex that she’ll feel bad about in retrospect. [I also don’t think I can or should prohibit sex in college (though for my daughter I’d sometimes like to) but want it to be respectful and consensual].</p>

<p>There’s no great answers, but hopefully what we teach them will help them make it into adulthood.</p>

64

<p>We let S have wine at home with dinner, but never if he is driving. Not even a sip. He does not seem to have much interest in drinking beyond that, but freshman year will tell. Best not to have a car right away.</p>

65

<p>oh duh- While I don’t know if any/how many bars/restaurants in her college town allow kids to drink who are underage, Vancouver, B.C., is not far & their drinking age is 19.</p>

<p>I bet they went there, and they probably took a bus.
That makes me feel a tiny bit better.</p>

66

<p>D1 was using someone’s id for a while, that’s how most kids get into bars.</p>

67

<p>^Yep - it’s pretty easy in some states to claim you lost your license and a new one will be issued for a few bucks and the old one is then given to friends. A twenty-something explained this to me recently.</p>

68

<p>Our state is pretty hard ass on ID’s. I get carded every single time I go out & when I go to festivals that have a beer garden, even though I have a wristband, they make me show my ID every single time I enter.
At 52 yrs old.
It isn’t flattering, it is a PITA.</p>

<p>and then there is this

</p>

<p>Since D took a year off before college, her friends are actually younger than herself, so I doubt she had met anyone who was 21 the first week of school.</p>

69

<p>A kid jumping in on this thread. :)</p>

<p>My parents and I haven’t formally sat down and talked about their expectations, but they pretty much expect the same as high school-- good grades, no trouble. I was very fortunate to receive a lot of scholarships this past year and if I am caught drinking or with illegal drugs those can be rescinded, so they know I will play it smart.</p>

<p>As for the car, I am lucky enough to have my own. Similarly to others, I live in a rural area where there is no public transportation, and I live twelve miles away from my school. After-school ECs were much more convenient with a car. My dad is a mechanic who put together a 1998 Buick Century for me; I believe it’s made out of a total of six different Buicks with a PT Cruiser horn. I’ll be two hours away from school, so it’ll be better in my family situation for me to not have to rely on someone else for a ride home.</p>

70

<p>

I’ve seen a number of people post that having a car will make it easier to get home.</p>

<p>I’m curious - for students, how many times do you expect to go home during the semester? For parents - how many times do you expect your kid to come home?</p>

<p>Personally, I want my kid staying on campus for the weekends and integrating as much as possible into school life. I don’t want him running home every weekend!</p>

<p>My S came home once during each semester last year - Thanksgiving and Spring Break. Between buses and parents (us and friends’ parents) we were able to get him home and back without much disruption (although school is only a 2 hour drive or so each way).</p>

<p>The local equivalent of Greyhound adds extra buses on the big travel weekends, and it was possible for S to take a bus from campus to within 10 miles of where we live, so that was a pretty easy way to travel. When I was in school, I would take a local bus to the Trailways station (about 10 miles), and then take that to the nearest big city where my parents would pick me up. Are there that many places with <em>no</em> access to bus service, even if you have to travel a bit to get to it?</p>

<p>It was a much bigger convenience (mostly for the parents!) for S to have a car in high school, but he hasn’t had any need for one in college yet, and as long as he lives on campus, I don’t think he will need one.</p>

71

<p>Why are people so concerned about other people’s kids taking cars to school? My son is taking his car because he will be four hours away from home. If he went two hours away, then he wouldn’t need a car because it would be no big deal for me to go get him, but an eight hour round trip is a full day that I don’t want to take, especially when he’d be coming home, like right before Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. when I’m busy. He’s definitely not planning to come home every weekend but maybe once in the fall. He could take public transportation home but it would take him 7 hours to get here so why do that when we already have the car which will get him home in 4 hours, and parking is available to him? We live in the midwest, not the East Coast where everything is connected. My parents were the type of people who thought kids should do things the difficult way to build character, but I am not, so I’m sending him with a car.</p>

72

<p>We are only 3 hours from S school…but there is no bus. They have a bus there, but no where near here. I work full time, and don’t get off until 5:30 on Fridays. I cannot/will not make the 6 hour drive there & back in one evening to pick him up. Nor,will I drive 6 hours to return him on Sunday.</p>

<p>He will come home for some of the HS home football games - big rivals, etc and I am sure for Homecoming as that is a big alumni event. I doubt he’ll come back for many basketball games since that is during winter when the roads are likely to be slick, but I know he’ll be home for Courtwarming. He has to crown the new queen. :)</p>

<p>He also plans to be home in mid November for deer season.</p>

<p>I know the first month , he’ll stay on campus because several Saturdays involve home college football games. </p>

<p>The above poster mentioned that things in the midwest are not so connected. This is true. The closest towns from us are 22 and 28 miles. There are no taxis or public transportation for hours. Kids here are use to driving a lot. (Especially when the movie theater is 45 miles !) He’s driven every day since he turned 16. A year before that with his permit, not to mention all the hours on a dirt bike since he was about 8. He’s doing ride along time now too on the ambulance. (He took the EMT class this past year at night) - he drove on a ‘city’ transfer call last week. It was 2 hours each way - in an ambulance. Here, it would be unheard of ‘our’ kids NOT to take their cars to school. Just as I would refuse to be without one.</p>

73

<p>He knows that under no circumstances is he to drive it at night to parties.</p>

<p>Okey-dokey.
:rolleyes:</p>

<p>Transportation was a big part of our college selection process, especially for the oldest. Our criteria included ease/options for getting to and from the college in the fall and spring as well as getting around the college town. She didn’t want the expense and hassle of a car, college students have plenty to manage without paying for ins/repairs/maintenance not to mention gas/oil.
( tragedies like saying goodbye forever are also less likely to occur with less dependence on privately owned vehicles- the thing about alcohol is it takes away the stop and think step)</p>

<p>Speaking of oil- we liked the idea that by reducing dependence on the car, we made it less likely to be dependent on outside resources for oil- perhaps one day others will follow our example.</p>

<p>Do we really need more oil rigs/spills?</p>

<p>

<a href=“Be a Force for the Future | NRDC”>Be a Force for the Future | NRDC;

<p>The oldest chose a city that has good public transportation, lt rail, buses, & streetcar as well as being manuverable by bike & foot, and now there are zipcars as well.
It also is fairly easy to get to- bus, train and airplane are all options ( as well as driving, it is about 4-5 hrs by car in decent traffic)</p>

<p>Younger D attends a school that is even closer- she has gotten back and forth to visit kids who live in the town, by patching together bus schedules from different counties. Using public transportation in India/UK, has helped her to become quite confident about her ability for get around on her own.</p>

74

<p>That’s great…but not EVERYWHERE in the US in metro. In fact, when you hit the midwest, there are a lot of miles in between towns. Especially out through Oklahoma, etc.</p>

<p>Even the nearby town with a community college does NOT have any public transportation. No taxi, no bus system, no train, no subway.</p>

<p>Some of the towns do not even have sidewalks ! If you walk, it is through people’s yards or in the street.</p>

<p>There are a lot of parts of the US that do not have this. I think people who have always lived in a metropolitin area have no idea about places that are smaller.</p>

<p>Also, it seems that in an area where kids already have their own cars, they’ll tend to be the ones who have them at school. In areas that kids don’t drive a lot, or use the family car, it seems they are the one’s leaving them at home.</p>

<p>I also think it is interesting that one of the big concerns is driving while going out. “Our” kids (by that, I mean midwest kids) have been going out on weekends & driving for 2-3 years already. There is always alcohol available (I honestly don’t know how) and they have to make GOOD decisions NOW. They’ve already been exposed to this. The only difference is that now, they’re hopefully coming home to parents that will know and intervene.</p>

<p>Our kids drive at night, at day, long distances, in the snow, in the rain, around other kids and traffic, etc. I’m not worried about S driving at school - why would I be? He is mature and responsible and we’ve been discussing alcohol and the dangers for years. We didn’t just now start.</p>

<p>My dear friend lives in Jersey. They moved here for a few years & went back closer to family & so her kids could go to prep school. Her S doesn’t drive, yet is 16. He hasn’t even taken his test yet. That’s an example of the cultural differences. She drives him everywhere.</p>

<p>Here, both parents are usually at work, so can’t drive the kids everywhere. Also, it is very common for our kids to take their driver’s test the day of their birthday if it’s offered somewhere. Perhaps even in a different town.</p>

<p>We don’t have a town school bus system. It has to do with state regulations not operating within a certain radius. Our school bus system is free. (Picks up country kids - some almost 20 miles away) We have kids - big & small that will walk across town (a couple of miles) to the one school. Older siblings drive their younger ones , especially when it’s raining or snowy. </p>

<p>We’re ok with not having public transit. We may not have the perks of the city, but we also have NO crime. Our kids are safe. Some people don’t even lock their doors. We don’t lock our car doors anywhere in our town either. We make the 1 1/2 hour drive into the city about once a month and go shopping, out to eat, to the movies, etc. We make the shorter drive to other towns at least once a week, more during school ball seasons.</p>

<p>No, we don’t need more oil spills ?! My S taking his car to college isn’t going to cause one. Give me a break !</p>

75

<p>

</p>

<p>This reminds me of a student I taught as a TA in my very first semester of grad school at the U of I.</p>

<p>About a week before Thanksgiving break, a kid told me that he was going deer hunting and that he was leaving town extra early for Thanksgiving break and would not be in class the Friday * before * Thanksgiving break; he also indicated he would not be in class at all during the week following Thanksgiving break. In other words, he told me that he would not be in class for something like 5 or 6 class meetings [class was a MWF class]. He assumed that I’d be “ok” with this and that I’d automatically reschedule the test that he would miss during this time (which had been anounced far in advance) and that I’d meet with him to go over the missed work, etc. My answer was “No way. Deer hunting is not a legitimate excuse for missing a week and a half or two of classes.” Kid didn’t listen and went deer hunting anyway. The department’s TA coordinator backed me up (when he came back and I wouldn’t give him a make up test); the kid earned a 0 on the test he missed, and as I recall he wound up failing the final exam too; and hence the failing grade he earned for the course wasn’t even close to the passing mark.</p>

76

<p>Deer season here begins the Saturday around November 13. My S only hunts on Saturday and Sunday. He will get out of class at 11:00 on Fridays, so can be home in plenty of time without missing class.</p>

<p>I agree, missing class to go hunting is NOT ok. However, we do have kids that miss that first Monday of the season to hunt with their fathers - who missed work. :slight_smile: I, personally, am not a hunter. I usually go Christmas shopping when they have their ‘big weekend’.</p>

77

<p>EK, first of all, I am not the one in this thread who was totally shocked to see that my 20-year-old might have had a pint of beer. I am well aware of my children’s habits and we have talked, talked, talked about the importance of not drinking and driving, having a designated driver, etc. My kids have grown up in a big college town and have been to parties on campus, bars way before they were of legal age plus plenty of high school parties where alcohol and worse were available. They were both three sport athletes in high school so were usually in season, so were often the designated drivers. They know drinking and driving is criminal behavior and the penalties are severe enough to ruin their future. They know that they need to plan ahead if there is drinking in the evening plans. They’ve been called out in the middle of the night to go pick someone up who couldn’t drive home. My son who is taking the car will be parking it in a storage lot which is farther away than any party on campus could ever be. So I am not worried about him using the car at night to drive to parties. I think kids nowadays are way smarter about that than my friends and I were in high school. Of course, the penalties back then were way less severe.</p>

<p>Second of all, you live in Seattle which has entirely different transportation options than the rest of us. There is a huge section between say Idaho and Tennessee, and the people on the edges of the country may not like it but there are a lot of us that live here. We actually like it here but we have to have our cars. If I want to fly somewhere, I have to drive two hours to the airport. We have an airport but fares are typically $200-300 higher to fly out of here. There is a service available to take us to the airport but it is $75 each and we can drive and pay for parking for a week for about that, and that’s only for one person. We have Amtrak but it only runs north-south and I usually want to go east-west. There was a movement to put a light rail trolley system in our town but it was going to cost BILLIONS of dollars which is a lot for a town of 100,000 people. You can take all those costs associated with automobiles in the excerpt that you quoted and it would cost far more to put alternate methods of transportation in for all of the country. They just aren’t economical in the middle part of the country because there are far fewer people and they won’t fill them up. We have a bus system here and the buses are full on campus but as they drive farther away from campus, you can see buses with 2 or 3 people on them, which is a constant source of letters to the editor. People don’t want these big buses driving through their neighborhoods with no one on them. </p>

<p>It is always going to come down to money when people are choosing their transportation. It seems to me that my son driving home with a couple other kids in the car is a fairly efficient way to get home and is definitely going to be the least expensive. I am getting in my car in about two hours and driving 16 hours to the east coast for a week of vacation at the beach. Definitely the least expensive way for us to get there, especially since we will need a car when we get there plus we need to transport sheets, towels and golf clubs and who knows how much the airline would charge for all that.</p>

78

<p>An unsolicited piece of advice for CheckersMidwest’s S: Many college professors schedule major assignments or tests the week before the week containing Thanksgiving Break. In other words, for 2010, a whole lot of professors will have major assignments or tests scheduled for the week of Nov. 15 through Nov. 19. So if S has any tests on Nov. 15 or 16 or papers/projects due on Nov. 15 or 16, he’ll need to plan accordingly.</p>

79

<p>My S taking his car to college isn’t going to cause one. Give me a break</p>

<p>No it isn’t. :slight_smile: I agree</p>

<p>But I try and live by my values and my values determine my choices.
If my choices don’t reflect my values- then I can’t really educate anyone else.</p>

<p>My choices do make a difference- they make a difference to * me* and perhaps by example, then someone else will be moved to make a difference & so on-</p>

<p>Starting some where- where ever you happen to be is a pretty great thing, because it takes more thought than * just doing what everyone else does- or what is easiest* and the more conscious thought that goes into your decision making, the more engaged you are with your own life.</p>

80

<p>Izzie- I wasn’t talking about his drinking, I was talking about his driving- what they understand and what they do are two different things- believe me I know. </p>

<p>Neither one of my kids attended college in Seattle- the transportation here in many neighborhoods is actually kinda sucky & I do understand that rural areas/suburbs have different choices- one reason why we chose to live in the city- cause I like to walk places- in the burbs, it just took too long.</p>

<p>I agree that lots of kids may have cars at college- while most students didn’t need a car a Reed , even my nieces who attended college in upstate NY managed to get by without a car.</p>

<p>Getting a ride to the airport etc., isn’t “mooching” if you pay for it, and many kids are looking for other students to share expenses/driving & just because it is more fun to have company.</p>

<p>However, if you are expecting to come home a lot, outside of regular break times, then I admit that may be more problematic. Not only for your transportation, but for your participation in the campus community.</p>

<p>My oldest , despite her initial trepidation, found her niche quickly and only came home for Thanksgiving & Xmas, & at the end of the year. Now that she lives there, she doesn’t even come home for Thanksgiving, and last year not even for xmas!</p>

<p>Younger D comes home a little more often, her friends in private colleges are on a semester schedule ( she is on qtr) and if they are in town, she either comes down to see them ( or more likely they go up there), or she may come to town every other month or three for a concert or to go to the dr. </p>

<p>But if the town & school is a good fit, they get pretty engaged with their life there & start to transition away from home.</p>