<p>(I like the privacy tent!) </p>
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That sounds like a difficult situation. How were the bulimic’s parents intrusive? Did they expect you to manage the bulimic?</p>
<p>Parents need to be realistic about their children. My eldest two were mature, self-sufficient and easy-going and never had trouble navigating sleep-overs, overnight camps, or college life. My youngest is not the same, and therefore I have held her back from some situations where I thought she would be unable to manage well, and might burden others and/or embarrass herself.</p>
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Depends on the ceiling height. It can be tough to sit up and read with low ceilings. I, also, prefer the top bunk, but I can see the alternative point of view. Additionally, there may be concerns about falling out, getting up and down in the middle of the night, etc.</p>
<p>They called every day, actually often more than once a day, which may not be unusual now with everyone on free cell phones, but was not something any of my other roommates’ parents did. And since I liked to study in the room, I often answered the phone. They expected me to report in detail on her activities, and what she was eating. I had 3 other roommates; none of us liked her at all, we never ate with her, and so I had little to say. They didn’t disclose her condition and I was rather shocked at how much detailed information they kept prying for, though it made more sense once we realized the situation. I think she was actually mostly recovered or at least very good at hiding what she was doing because I did not observe anything unusual myself. One of my other roommates told me. </p>
<p>So a typical conversation might go, Is X there? No, I’m sorry, she went out. Well where did she go? I think she went to run some errands. What errands? Sorry, I’m not sure. Did she go to the bank? I really don’t know. I think she might be back in an hour or two if you’d like her to call you. Well, what did she have for breakfast? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. Sorry, I have to go study now.</p>
<p>Let’s hope one has a decent rail and wouldn’t roll the whole tent off the top of the bunkbed!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/privacy-pop-tent-for-bunk-beds/3241165”>http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/privacy-pop-tent-for-bunk-beds/3241165</a></p>
<p>GFG- I respect the decisions you’ve made regarding your more complicated child- but not everyone draws the line where you do. There are peanut allergic kids in a local elementary school who want a “rule” that kids in their child’s class need to maintain peanut free spaces in their own homes so that their child doesn’t become stigmatized by not being able to go on play dates freely. I personally think this is nuts- (pun intended) and if my kid had a life threatening allergy, I assume I’d prefer to host the playdates until my kid was old enough to jab him/herself with the epi pen. I know adults who are gluten free/gluten sensitive (not celiac… just self imposed gluten free diets) who get offended when invited to a dinner party which is not going to be mostly gluten free. Again- I think this is nuts.</p>
<p>OTOH, I don’t expect people who have “issues” (however you want to define them) to keep themselves home in bubble wrap for their entire lives, and reasonable accomodation of other people is part of living in society. I have a nephew with autism and I think his parents are very brave for living a public “out there” life- including travel, museum visits, restaurant meals, etc. Most of the time, their child behaves in an age appropriate way and nobody would notice. Occasionally his behavior is very problematic, and they try to scurry him off to privacy when that happens. It would make me sad if people thought they should hide their kid at home so he wouldn’t “embarrass” himself. They don’t take him to the opera (that would be rude, not embarrassing, if someone paid $200 for a ticket to the Met only to sit next to a kid having a full blown episode) but I don’t think keeping him out of Pizza Hut or the circus is necessary. He certainly is no more disruptive than other kids his age who don’t have autism… but are just loud and aggressive.</p>
<p>I’ve had employees working for me who have had all sorts of issues, phobias, medical conditions, etc. Some of them are easy work-arounds (teleconferencing for the flying phobic, if the trips are not an essential part of the job; a special telecom device/computer reader for someone experiencing significant hearing or vision loss). Some of them are harder- significant social disorders and phobias (we work in a large office tower. Someone who can’t use an elevator without inducing a panic attack is going to have trouble going to regular meetings on 10 different floors on a daily basis).</p>
<p>So I see the problem you articulate. But somewhere between asking folks with issues to stay home for the rest of their lives, and insisting that the entire world change to accommodate you in every single situation lies a happy medium. And requiring a college student to disclose something which may not be problematic to every single roommate situation seems harsh to me. If the roommate can’t live with it- request a transfer. If the school won’t allow a transfer, make a stink. But to decide upfront that the kid who needs darkness shouldn’t go to college, must pay for a single, has to disclose something which might not be a problem for a potential roommate? Seems unnecessary. And mean. And likely illegal.</p>
<p>@niquii77:</p>
<p>Thoses phobias have names: paruresis and parcopresis .</p>
<p>The above-referenced phobias are also referred to as shy bladder and shy bowel.</p>
<p>I agree with much of what you say, blossom, but the PC police would have us accept that all individual preferences are equally valid and should be accommodated equally. I disagree. Most of us think that wanting to sleep with the overhead dorm room light on all night is NOT an equivalent preference to wanting to go to bed at 11 PM versus at 1 AM, or wanting to have a night light on instead of complete darkness. There are things that fall on the normal continuum and things that do not. Needing the window open at all times in all weather, is not an equivalent preference to wanting A/C instead of a fan. </p>
<p>So, in the case of an autistic child, I would take him everywhere I go unless I were to know in advance from past experience that he does not tolerate a particular experience and would ruin it for others. Fireworks might be a definite no-go for some kids on the spectrum, for example. In general, the circus might be fine for a sensitive child, unless the clown starts popping balloons, at which point he could be removed temporarily if he gets distraught. It’s not just about avoiding embarrassment, it’s about comfort for the individual and consideration for those around him. All the same, if you knew your middle-schooler still wet the bed (my D didn’t, but other kids with issues do), would you send him on an overnight with his peers and risk that fact becoming common knowledge?</p>
<p>“Some of them are harder- significant social disorders and phobias (we work in a large office tower. Someone who can’t use an elevator without inducing a panic attack is going to have trouble going to regular meetings on 10 different floors on a daily basis).”</p>
<p>I worked with someone who would not get into an elevator with any of us. We were part of a large team that would periodically go from one building to the other (requiring an elevator); we’d all go in a group, we’d board one elevator and he’d wait for a solo one and use that. He also went out every day for lunch to Pizza Hut from 12 - 1. It didn’t matter what deadline we were under or what else was going on or whether we were in an all-day session with our ad agency or whatever. He would go out, then come back and sit in his car in the parking lot til a close-in spot opened up - even if it took a half hour. It was very odd. Oh, he was from a big fancy elite school, fwiw.</p>
<p>“I never said that I “couldn’t handle” a night light or LED light or that I would categorically veto any such items. I was just looking for an acknowledgement from less sensitive persons such as yourself that yes, this is a significant enough disturbance that I regard such items as a compromise.”</p>
<p>It may be a compromise for you to have an LED light, but it’s a reasonable compromise to make when you live with someone. Just like our hypothetical afraid-of-the-dark may consider it a “compromise” to use just a night light instead of having the overhead light on all night – but it’s a reasonable compromise to make when you live with someone. Likewise, it’s a reasonable compromise for me to try put my iPad under the covers or angle myself in such a way so that it doesn’t shine on you at nighttime when I still want to surf. It’s also a reasonable compromise for us to angle the beds in such a way that you won’t see it. It’s not a reasonable compromise for you to tell me I can’t ever use it. </p>
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<p>And if the smartphone/tablet is sufficiently dimmed to reduce the light emitted to the point it’s equivalent to a nightlight. :D</p>
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I would think that enough people don’t care for bunk-style beds that the roommates could reasonably agree to place them separately. I’ve yet to see a dorm room where they MUST bunk the beds. Personally, I don’t care for them. Are there students with “I’m not in a bunk bed-o-phobia” who would insist on bunks?</p>
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<p>Most dorms don’t bunk beds as a default even when space limitations would make that a prudent option. </p>
<p>Students who desire to bunk beds have the option of doing so themselves or with assistance of dorm staff provided dorm regulations don’t prohibit doing so and staff are willing. </p>
<p>Another thing many college/grad students do to create more storage space in dorms is to raise their beds several feet using cinderblocks. </p>
<p>“I would think that enough people don’t care for bunk-style beds that the roommates could reasonably agree to place them separately. I’ve yet to see a dorm room where they MUST bunk the beds. Personally, I don’t care for them. Are there students with “I’m not in a bunk bed-o-phobia” who would insist on bunks?”</p>
<p>My freshman year I lived in a room that was small enough that the beds needed to stay bunked. I was in the top bunk. I also lived in a quad room in my sorority which had a bunk bed and then 2 twin beds. It was a large room, but cut up by a lot of windows, and it would have cut into the livability significantly if the bunks had been unbunked. I was in the lower bunk the second instance. No big deal either way.</p>
<p>Speaking of rooms, I lived for 2 years in a sorority house which was 100+ years old and had a lot of very irregularly shaped rooms with a lot of quirks (a closet might jut out, a pipe might obscure part of a closet, etc.). Because the rooms were so “uneven,” we switched rooms every quarter (so, I lived in 6 different rooms during my 2 years there). With an old house like that, there are all kinds of weird configurations for the beds and furniture, and you just have to stay flexible. You might be under the window even though you don’t like the light shining in, or whatever. You just have to learn to deal with it. </p>
<p>My daughter, who is a freshman, sleeps with the light on. Always has. Luckily she has a single in a suite of 6 girls. Also, since she has always had a single bathroom as an only child, the sharing a bathroom thing is a little stressful for her but I am just letting her adjust. Hopefully she will find a time to shower that she can have the bathroom to herself. Since she is a very early riser, she will probably be in the bathroom alone most times anyway.</p>
<p>As to the box in the bedroom, I understand the phobia about not doing #2 in shared bathrooms. Its not really a phobia, I just (how can I put this), don’t want to disturb others with the smell. So, if I am sharing a bathroom in a hotel for instance, I will go downstairs to a public bathroom and not go in the room. Or go when I know my roommate is going to be gone for awhile. Anyway, know that is TMI, but I am aghast that her parents allow her to poop in a box. That is beyond phobia, that is disturbed and she needs help.</p>
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Last year, S lofted his bed and put his desk and dresser underneath. He didn’t care for it being so hard to climb into, but the room was rather crowded otherwise. The point is, even with limited space there was an alternative to bunking the beds. I’ve seen more lofted beds than bunked beds. I think kids tend to prefer having their own “half” to the room, especially in these times when most kids are coming to college from having their own rooms.</p>
<p>My freshman dorm required the beds to be bunked. It was a tiny quad. My daughter has attended a summer program at a nearby college–this summer she was in a double within a suite which could not possibly have fit the beds un-bunked. The suite was pretty nice overall with a good-sized “living room” but bunks were unavoidable in her bedroom.</p>
<p>I’ve yet to see a dorm room where they MUST bunk the beds. >></p>
<p>DD3’s second dorm room was that tiny. If they had opted to not bunk the beds, they would have had to move out either one of the tiny dressers or a desk.</p>
<p>S’s dorm rooms have been truly atrociously small. His first year, they unbanked the beds. They really had barely enough room to turn around. His second year he had a single. I am not exaggerating when I say that when H, D and I came to visit, the 4 of us could not stand in the room without keeping the door open. And none of us are big people. </p>
<p>You know, I think we’re getting so “soft.” Just CANNOT sleep if a roommate inflicts the soft glow of an alarm clock upon us? Really? That’s not in the same ballpark as a phobia, it’s just a preference which gets blown out of proportion, imo. We are so pampered with our soft beds and blankets, our heating and our air conditioning, our fans, our insistence on total quiet or darkness, etc. If any of us were transported through time even to two hundred years ago, we’d never make it past the first week. </p>
<p>I include myself in this flagellation, as someone who is on the last leg of a one week road trip, during which I’ve slept fitfully because I haven’t had my oscillating fan to cool my menopausal-fevered body at night.</p>
<p>We’re SOFT I tell you, just incredibly soft.</p>