They’re home! Your college student children are home for the summer. Try to remember how it was when you came home after a year away at college. They expect no rules. Come and go as they please. Most kids in college drink, there is no way around it. Trying to pretend they don’t is foolish. BUT, here is something you should know and may help lessen the fights this summer – drinking with your kids is LEGAL. In your home and in an alcohol selling premises – as long as you are with them. If you will be travelling with them, check out this website for the law in the 43 states that allow underage drinking. Obviously, you can’t allow a full on party in your home with the child and his friends.
The reality is that it may be a good idea to introduce your children to alcohol by way of moderation, under your supervision. They certainly are not going to learn about it while at a fraternity party. As a freshman, we can not count on the upperclassmen to teach our kids about alcohol. College drinking is in the news, it seems, everyday. Usually isn’t good news. Ask any college student, or anyone who knows a student, or has even simply, driven by a college student if there is drinking going on at school. It’s always a unanimous, staggering “a lot”. As a matter of fact, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism goes so far as to say this:
“Abusive and underage college drinking are significant public health problems, and they exact an enormous toll on the intellectual and social lives of students on campuses across the United States.”
And, this from the institute’s fact sheet:
“Drinking at college has become a ritual that students often see as an integral part of their higher education experience. Many students come to college with established drinking habits, and the college environment can exacerbate the problem. Research shows that more than 80 percent of college students drink alcohol, and almost half report binge drinking in the past 2 weeks.”
This from yet, another study:
“Although alcohol use begins before students arrive at college, pressure to misuse alcohol may be intensified when a student starts college and is interacting with new peers, is exposed to new norms about alcohol use, and parents are less present. In high school, those seniors who are college-bound are less likely to report heavy drinking than their classmates who don’t plan to go on to college. Once students arrive on campus, however, they “catch up to and pass” the young adults who do not attend college”
It’s going on and there is no way around it. Use this time with your child to teach them, while they are with you and it is legal. Teach them all the tragic circumstances that can come about from drinking and ultimately in need of a criminal defense attorney. Kid experiment. Kids make mistakes everyday.
You can not let your kids leave your house with alcohol in their system, they can be charged. That is where the problem is. While they have been drinking with your approval and your supervision, all legally, they can still get behind the wheel and cause havoc. Even a tiny amount of alcohol in their system will get them in trouble because of the zero tolerance for drivers under 21, while adults can drive legally with a blood alcohol percentage of .08. If they are pulled over, and had “only 1 beer”, remind them to remain silent, don’t take any tests and to ask to call a criminal defense attorney in Ohio.
Also note if you child has signed a school, club, sports conduct code that prohibits any form of underage drinking, it could get them in trouble with penalties and sanctions from the various organizations.
I write this to help with the stressful time parents may have with their students returning for the summer. Manage the situation and it can be a positive experience.
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