<p>“I wasn’t talking about rates of alcohol consumtion (cause I have no clue) but they don’t have the drunk driving issue over there like we do here - which was the topic of the thread. As I understand, ANY AGE getting a DUI over there is REALLY SERIOUS and people just don’t drive drunk.”</p>
<p>It’s a function of our car culture. Eliminate access to automobiles and you eliminate DUIs. </p>
<p>The main impact of the under-21 drinking law is that high school seniors aren’t usually out buying for 14 year olds.</p>
This is another reason why I think a progressive licensing scheme would be better. It would allow for high school and college to be treated differently without a single age cut-off.</p>
I just don’t get how the first three sentences are consistent with the last two. You presumably don’t think that drinking is immoral, or even unwise, in general. You do it, and when we were under 21, it was legal. Our whole culture models drinking as a perfectly normal and reasonable thing to do. What is the magic pixie dust that turns a “bad decision” at age 20 into a good decision at 21? Our kids are not fooled by any of this, which is why they ignore the rules. If we had rules that made more sense, they might not ignore them.</p>
<p>There isn’t. Which is why I think it might make sense to raise the drinking age to 25. </p>
<p>The rules make very good sense now; they’ve saved thousands of lives, and represent one of the most successful public health interventions of the 20th Century. And not just in alcohol consumption or DUIs; underage rapes, sexual assaults, assaults, etc., would all soar without them (as they have in northern Europe). </p>
<p>And do people break the law? Yup. Our kids have become targets - they have bullseyes on their backs - for the alcopops and malt beverage industry, beginning around 2003. A sensible law? You bet - how about beginning one whereby the hoax of malt beverages are treated like hard liquor (which they are) rather than like beer?</p>
<p>I’ve bought wine for my daughter before she turned 21. Your kid may have enjoyed sipping two buck chuck with her while enjoying a cheese plate and the latest netflix romcom. I wouldn’t have done it in high school. I wouldn’t supply a keg to an unknown large group. She is over 21 now and has not gone on to be an alcoholic. Driving was not in play.</p>
<p>When dealing with clearances and government or military service, even reductions to “reckless driving” are big red flags. When checks are done, “reckless driving” offenses are looked as dui’s that were knocked down due to families having money and good lawyers. Unfortunately, mistakes like this have lifelong consequences in many career fields.</p>
How, exactly, is it different? Many of us enable underage drinking by send our kids to colleges that don’t strictly enforce drinking laws, by not pulling them out of school when we learn they are drinking, etc. I agree that buying beer for them is more enabling, but only as a matter of degree. I just don’t think there is a strong enough cultural acceptance of the current drinking laws for them to be effective. They are more like the speed limit than they are the law against shoplifting. I’m not persuaded the answer is to more strictly enforce the laws–I think better laws are needed.</p>
Let me get this straight…kids are laughing and drinking toasts to their own dead, maimed and jailed peers? They are making fun of kids who died or were maimed? If this is a youtube video, would you share the search terms so that I could see it?</p>
<p>" I just don’t think there is a strong enough cultural acceptance of the current drinking laws for them to be effective."</p>
<p>I think there is strong cultural acceptance of the law - high school drinking has declined substantially since the law was implemented, and college drinking has not increased (it is slightly lower). There are many, many fewer alcohol-related traffic fatalities (they are at an all-time low). In fact, I think there is less acceptance among 60-year-olds than among 18-year-olds. What has changed, however, is the intensity of drinking, especially on college campuses, fueled by the alcopops/malt beverage industry, and the switch from beer to hard liquor.</p>
<p>I think other posters have said, and even in your post you say, the difference is a matter of degree. In cases where there there are differences of degree, a parent has to draw the line somewhere. The parent who said (s)he would not buy alcohol for a minor has chosen to draw the line there.</p>
<p>As for myself, I’ve given our 11 and 13 year old sips of wine and champagne. So far they have hated it (partly my intention), but strictly speaking I am enabling teenage drinking. I am OK with my current stance - we’ll see what happens when the kids get older.</p>
<p>I agree with another poster who said I would not serve alcohol at a teen party; I would not serve alcohol to kids I don’t know; actually, I don’t think I would serve alcohol to any kids who are not mine.</p>
<p>I am one of those who PM’d MOWC when my S had an underage alcohol incident at college. She talked me off the ledge and offered advice and our family got thru the ordeal–not without consequences and not cheaply–and I believe our S did learn and grow from it. (Thanks again, MOWC!)</p>
<p>OP, while this is stressful for your family right now, you are handling appropriately.<br>
Just wanted to send my thoughts and prayers…you will get thru this and your son can still have a bright future…</p>
<p>OP - just want to comment on the college aspect of this - as I think you have the legal and parental situation well in hand. The hs gc will have to report the suspension to colleges. Your best bet is to meet with the gc and work on how to “frame” it - so that she can focus on lessons learned, the SADD chapter and so forth. On his applications, if he has a conviction by the fall - he will have to indicate that as well. This would be a good use of the optional essay prompt or additional information prompt that most applications contain.</p>
<p>I have known several students who had similar incidents in hs - they are all attending college. In fact, you can make the argument that the colleges would rather see an applicant who has already had this experience and learned this lesson - rather than one who has lived a squeaky clean existence in hs and is going to go crazy the first week of college! I don’t think this is going to have a horrible impact on the college process - just have him be upfront about it and turn it into a positive as far as lessons learned, etc.</p>
<p>From the Common Application:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He will certainly have to answer “yes” to the first question.</p>
<p>Probably. But zero tolerance is for youth under the age of 21. I think you are trying to imply hypocrisy where there isn’t any. Nothing wrong with being a teetotaler, though. ;)</p>
There’s no magic pixie dust that turns a 17 years and 11-month old kid into a good decision-maker the next month, but we let 18-year-olds vote, play the lottery, sign legally binding contracts, rent apartments, live independently, purchase cars, and do a host of other things that they could not do a month prior. There needs to be a hard, bright line. </p>
<p>mini, it is my understanding that binge drinking (and its associated ills) has increased on college campuses since the days in which drinking was legal at age 18. Is that not true?</p>
<p>I’m a teetotaler, and we don’t keep mood altering substances in our house. But… I’m not really zero tolerance. I think kids are going to do stupid things and have done stupid things since the beginning of time.</p>
<p>I am zero tolerance for dinking and driving, for the same reason I am zero tolerance for drinking and carrying a loaded gun around. People die. </p>
<p>I think change in laws has changed the drinking culture, particularly in high school. Drinking used to be very acceptable in high school when the law was 18. I was recently with a group of friends from high school and we were looking at old pictures, this was right after the law had changed and not much else, and we always had beer with us, in cars, at school events, whatever. And we were the “smart” kids who ran all the “clubs.”</p>
<p>I don’t really think the “answer” is to keep kids who make a mistake out of careers for the rest of their lives, either. </p>
<p>I also believe the law for beer, and by beer I mean beer, not malt stuff, and wine should be 19. Most kids are out of high school by 19.</p>
<p>ETA: In fact, I think it ought to be beer and wine at 19 and hard liquor at 25, if ever. We have no more deadly drug in our repertoire than hard liquor.</p>
There’s three thousand schools in the U.S., so there will be a lot of variation. However, it is my understanding that colleges are more interested in full disclosure than in what the kid actually did (short of murder). My suggestion is to file it all in an addendum, explaining what happened, taking full responsibility, and then explaining what has happened since - substance abuse counseling, SADD, detention, etc. (Do not use it for the essay; that should be about something else.) This is also where LoRs can be very important: a teacher who says “Good kid that screwed up, took responsibility, and, on his own initiative, tried to keep his peers from making his mistakes” will do a lot to soften the blow.</p>
<p>Also, comparing the drinking laws to speeding laws is not a bad analogy. There is not a significant difference between 55 and 58, but speed limits overall have improved highway safety. A drinking age of 21 might not be perfect, but it does serve a purpose.</p>
<p>And police usually use their discretion in how to enforce the law.<br>
I hope they don’t come charge me for serving my kids a few sips of wine at home.</p>
<p>On a side note, did you hear about the Michigan professor who had his 7-year old son taken away from him at a baseball game because dad didn’t know Mike’s Hard Lemonade was alcoholic? Son was in foster care for three days. Ugh. Sorry if this is too off-topic.</p>