<p>I drank some in high school and more in college. I remember getting half of my dorm very drunk and sick with my family's secret recipe for Union League punch! I mixed it up in a dorm trashcan. D has tended to be a responsible drinker. S would probably not be, but training for his sport heads off a few problems in that area. I worry more about my kids than I did myself, of course. After all, I was immortal! If there aren't cars involved, I feel less apprehensive about alcohol.</p>
<p>Why is it that parents treat drinking as ok when compared to driving? Is it becuase of their personal experiences with drinking? This is different from what I thought.</p>
<p>I think the problem with most families is that they treat alcohol as a taboo. and when students reach college ... wham! Lets go to something our parents consider bad.
Drinking is what we call an item you do in moderation. Its not bad but moderation is the key. This has always been stressed in the household. </p>
<p>Between people drinking everywhere and it being so easy to get, it must be kind of hard to not to drink. Its not just peer pressure its also the surroundings. Thats why I feel stressing moderation not that it is forbidden, is the key to keeping kids from drinking overboard.</p>
<p>Same reason they drive too fast...</p>
<p>aww see, now thats just not fair - there is no such thing as "driving too fast" :)
As long as you're a good driver (and by this I don't mean the generic sense - everyone thinks they're a "good driver" - so perhaps I should say exceedingly excellent driver) who knows the limits of the vehicle they're driving and of their own ability.</p>
<p>I'm studying at Oxford. The drinking age is 18 here (though this really isn't strictly adhered to. The chances of a 16 years old being stopped from buying alcohol are slim to zero. Everyone has tasted alcohol before they are 18, usually from their parents.) so it's not illegal for college students. In fact we get wine free on the table at formal meals. Sometimes other drinks such as port too. This is no big deal. But there are still quite a lot of alcohol abusers. Especially in the first week of "Michaelmas term" which is in October. Many of the new students seem to compete to see who can consume the most alcohol in one evening. Always some of them end up in hospital. It dies down after that. Being drunk in general is no taboo here. Driving isn't a problem because students are banned from having cars and Oxford is small enough to walk everywhere. Frats don't exist but there are drinking societies, which I think are suppoed to be about wine appreciation or something, but are actually just drinking clubs.</p>
<p>Just so you know making it legal doesn't make it better.</p>
<p>I just read a study in our local paper. It compared the overall rates of binge drinking in the state to the rate of binge drinking at the college campuses in each of the states. There was a pretty strong correlation between the 2. States with higher rates of binge drinking in the adult population had higher rates of binge drinking in the college age population. The states with the lowest rates of adult binge drinkers also had the lowest rates of college students binge drinking as well. So that says to me that a lot of it is attitudes about drinking that students bring with them from home. If kids grow up watching adults getting drunk once a month, they are not going to see a problem with doing it themselves.</p>
<p>I'm a junior in high school, and perhaps I can give you some insight into the dark abyss that is the adolescent mind.</p>
<p>The newfound freedom kids get in college in enough to make them lose all reason, especially if they come from a sheltered life. There are many parents who try SO hard to keep their kids away from drinking and parties, thinking that they are accomplishing something, when they are doing quite the opposite. These sheltered kids then go to college and do shots until they pass out, or die. </p>
<p>Because drinking under 21 is illegal, it is so much more appealing.</p>
<p>My family is from a small country in Europe, where there is no drinking age. I was born and raised there until age 10, and ever since I can remember, I've been permitted to have wine or sometimes a beer at dinner or at family occasions. Because I have been allowed to drink responsibly in my home at the dinner table, I never felt the urge to go out and play Beer Bong. </p>
<p>My friends, on the other hand, have parents who lock the liquor cabinet, and they feel as if they are missing out on the fun of drinking, so they go to parties to and get drunk, with often troubling consequences.</p>
<p>Helix, your experience is similar to my nephew who was raised in Latin America....He came up to a northeastern LAC and was bewildered by his classmates participation in drinking games, etc. He'd never seen anything like it before in that wine was always at the table at home.</p>
<p>Helix,</p>
<p>
[quote]
the dark abyss that is the adolescent mind
[/quote]
</p>
<p>was a LOL. Thanks.</p>
<p>Why is there so many young smokers in Europe and in China?</p>
<p>I think it's very much a cultural thing, at least in Europe. Because I spent my first ten years there, I can attest to the fact that many people, teens included, smoke a great deal. I think in Europe though, people smoke for pleasure (I know, what pleasure is there from getting lung cancer?) rather than as a way to deal with stress or fit in. </p>
<p>In America, people are often seen sneaking out the back door for a smoke. Their hands are shaking as they fumble for the lighter, hoping they they don't lose control becuase their body needs the nicotine. </p>
<p>In Europe however, at least the parts of Europe that I have seen, people smoke in streetside caffes with their friends, or at a big gathering, or when they are laughing and having a good time with their friends. Although they, too, are addicted, they seem to do it becuase they want to and it pleases them, not because they NEED to.</p>
<p>Sorry if I've just confused you further.........</p>
<p>Why not? That's the way people relax, and getting buzzed brings people together and helps them forget their problems for a moment.
mamochka, vspomnite sebya v 18 let :). Ne mne vam obyasnyat'</p>
<p>And Calmom is right: the forbidden fruit is always the sweetest. My question as a student is: why is it so bad? In college everybody is an adult, intelligent and responsible enough. We know our limits, and how much is too much, well at least I do. Despite drinking quite a bit at parties, I always maintained composure and could control myself.</p>
<p>Vladimir, vot mne 19 let, no ne nado napivatsya chtob veselitsya! :) </p>
<p>While some people do know their limits, including Vladimir and myself, as a student I see so many people that absolutely lack any reasoning skills when it comes to alcohol use. And after getting into trouble over and over, you'd think they'd learn, but they don't... hmm...</p>
<p>Vladimir, you say I should remember myself when I was 18... God, it was a long time ago, in the late seventies, in the "communist" Russia. 95% of students in big cities commuted from home and never lived in dormitories. I never did, and I bet your parents didn't either. So even if there were some excesses we - commuters - usually didn't witness it. As for me personally, it never occurred to me even when I was 18 that drinking could help me establish myself in the eyes of my peers... Might seem as a gap in my college experiences (read: education) to some, but not to me.</p>
<p>Alcohol is the forbidden fruit. No action of parents, schools, or law enforcement is going to change that, and the rules in place seem to make it that much more soughtafter.</p>
<p>There's actually an old long term study of alcohol use and abuse which found that whether drinking is legal or illegal doesn't change much of anything in terms of the percentage of kids who drink, but when it's illegal, there's more binge drinking. My hunch is that when drinking is legal, kids who don't drink go to the same parties. When it's illegal, they are less likely to. Lots of kids tend to drink the "average" amount at a party. If there are no or fewer non-drinkers in the mix, the amount of beer or other alcohol consumed by the "average" drinkers at a party increases. </p>
<p>I've often told my kids that if I could sign a permission slip for them to drink in college, I would. I think it's ABSURD that those from 18-21 can't drink legally and I think it causes a whole host of problems. </p>
<p>1)A conservative estimate would be that one-quarter of the college kids in the US who are under 21 have phony i.d.s.Some of the people who make those aren't very nice people; the kids are giving money to some really sleazy criminals, who often get a lot of personal information from them--great for identity theft, among other things. 2) If kids get arrested for drinking between the ages of 18 and 21, it's NOT a juvenile offense in some states! At least in the old days you were a juvenile until 21. I think it's ABSURD that you can have a conviction for "underage drinking" as an ADULT legally. If you have to be 21 to drink, then it should be a JUVENILE offense, which will get wiped out. Some states still treat it as a juvenile offense, but some do not. 3) If you get caught with a phony i.d., especially a government document like a driver's license, the crimes you can be charged with are pretty serious. While most employers aren't going to bat an eye when you are 30 because you got caught for underage drinking when you were 19, having a conviction for forgery of government documents or knowing use of forged instruments is another story. 4) Another HUGE problem is that there is ENORMOUS pressure on the kids who are 21 to buy the beer and booze for parties. If they get caught, it's a crime and a fairly serious one--more serious than drinking underage. (The state where one of my kids goes to college requires that every beer keg be numbered and the seller has to write down the name and address and driver's license of the purchaser. Get caught having bought the keg for a party with underage drinkers and you are in MAJOR trouble. ) 5) The biggest problem of all though is that kids come to see breaking a law as "no big deal". Kids who break this law will as adults be more willing to break others because "everyone does"--tax evasion, for example. </p>
<p>I really, really think it's wrong though that some great kids are ending up with criminal records for buying booze for their friends or altering a driver's license to change a date of birth when the SOLE reason they've done it is to get to go to a club or bar--some of these kids don't even drink! They just want to be able to hang out with their older friends and the places card at the door. </p>
<p>There's WAY too much drinking in college. I really do think that part of the reason is that when it's illegal you end up with parties where everyone is drinking and comes expecting to drink. Have a few drinks is one thing; going to a party intending to get bombed is another. There's WAY too much of the latter going on these days at colleges.</p>
<p>are there any colleges where drinking DOES NOT play a prevalent role in the social lives of students? I've heard statistics cited for the % of students taht drink at certain colleges: is there any centralized list with lots of statistics of this sort on many colleges? </p>
<p>I mean, it's not that I don't think I'll <em>ever</em> drink in college, but it makes me uncomfortable to think that there are no better forms of entertainment at some places, and i'm definately not interested in binge drinking. what i'm asking is this: would I be an anomally everywhere?</p>
<p>My coworker and I discussed this same question a few years ago and his answer was "Bryn Mawr". His daughter was a student there at the time, she has since graduated. I'm sure there are others - this was just his reply from his own personal knowledge.</p>
<p>Another answer to that question would be Swarthmore. Some students do drink but it does not play a prevalent role in campus culture.</p>
<p>To the question about what colleges there are that drinking is not a part of: probably very few, if any. If one does not want to drink, one shouldn't. Simple as that. You should be adult enough to resist peer pressure and find other ways to entertain yourself.</p>