Spring Break and Alcohol: What Parents Need to Know

The United States has been rocked by the string of alcohol binge deaths in recent years taking place on American college campuses. Among the most concerned are parents. They are asking themselves: ‘Why is this happening to college students? Weren’t they sent to institutions of higher learning? What is our money buying for our children?

“Surely we’re not paying money just so that our kids can drink and party…and die.”

These are good questions, and parents are right to ask them. After all, parents are usually the ones shelling out for their kids’ highly prized and valuable education. Fortunately, this is what their kids usually get. But in addition, college students are getting a lot more—and not all of it is making parents happy.

To put it all in context, it’s part of what many refer to as the “secondary higher-level education.” In addition to the actual majors, minors and masters degrees, students are confronted with a socio-cultural experience unlike anything they’ve ever experienced. Freshmen are usually the most impacted by this, although it can continue throughout a student’s college career. Essentially, it’s the “fish out of water” experience: children are taken from mostly sheltered suburban lives, and thrown into a bustling milieu of youth, energy and new, daring endeavors.

In a world filled with peer pressure focusing on popularity, sexual image and coolness, college kids are tying to eek out an image of their own—away from their parents, away from their home, away from their childhood circle of friends. And this does not end where the college campus ends. No, it continues to function wherever college students congregate.

Spring break—the holy festival of any college student—is a major platform for this type of secondary education. Here, away from their studies and the constraints of campus rules, students want to impress their new found individuality upon their group of friends and the new people they meet—and they’re frequently willing to go to extreme lengths to do so.

There can be nothing more invigorating or inspirational than a person who has come in contact with their inner self. But when this inner self is released only in the presence of alcohol or drugs, there can be nothing more dangerous.

Partying, drugs and sex, combined with raunchy, extreme or careless behavior are all ways in which students in a vacation environment choose to express their freedom. Spring break is the most popular forum in which college kids to break away and take a vacation from their roots.

And in many cases, alcohol is the key to this freedom. It erases anxiety and worry and makes one feel as if nothing, nothing at all, is holding them down.

In small doses, alcohol has quite a beneficial effect—something that is frequently referred to as “social lubrication.”

The problem is that many college students are not experienced drinkers and do not know how to limit themselves. And this limit is further erased in the presence of peer pressure and various drinking contests (beer bongs and beer chugging competitions).

The dangers of binge drinking can be avoided with rational, down to earth conversations about drinking. One suggestion for parents is to stop villainizng alcohol. This can actually end up making it more attractive to youth, who are often inclined toward the rebellious. Instead, educate your young ones on the dangers of excessive drinking, while emphasizing a safe and responsible attitude toward the consumption alcohol.

2 January 06 | |

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