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dang, what a bad evening

Gator

Gator

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 23, 2005
Messages
2,418
Location
Asheville NC
we had some neighbors over tonight, and a total of 5 15yo's. So at a little after midnight, we discover that one of our 15 yo twin daughters was drunk. We have a large house, 1700 ft down stairs in the daylight basement, and evidently tonight my daughter decided she would sneak some vodka in the sparkling grape juice, and the result was ugly.

my wife, who had a red wine buzz working, thinks we should totally give up alcohol, but i dunno. Seeing a child puking is brutal, to say the least (we practice moderate consumption, usually a drink or two on the weekends, a glass of wine or two during the week evenings), but is the answer to knee jerk and totally give up alcohol?

seeing your child puking from alcohol is as horrible as it gets, makes you wonder what the F we are doing as parents, but is it the answer to act like alcohol is the 'devil' and totally abstain.

i'm completely shredded emotionally, would love to hear some advice from parents who've faced a similar scenario :(
 
I've only got sick once and it was when I was in high school. I learned my lesson and try to drink in moderation now. Even if I go out to a party and get drunk I know when to draw the line so I don't get sick. Some kids just don't learn though, I have a couple of friends in college and they drink till they get sick and drink some. I would just talk about drinking responsibly and the bad things that can happen (mip, dui, stomach pumped, drunk driving death, alcohol poisoning, date rape, and alot of other things). I'm 21 so I don't know how it would feel to see your 15 year old kid getting wasted, but I don't think giving up alcohol is the answer. Some kids learn for their experience and some don't, I don't know what you would do if she continued to get drunk and sick. When I was in high school I eventually came out and told my parents that I drink sometimes and thats why I stay over at friends houses, so I don't have to drive home and I also drink responsibly. They didn't approve since I was underage but they said if I was going to drink to drink responsibly. I think the big thing is just drinking responsibly and knowing what could happen if you don't.
 
Gator said:
we had some neighbors over tonight, and a total of 5 15yo's. So at a little after midnight, we discover that one of our 15 yo twin daughters was drunk. We have a large house, 1700 ft down stairs in the daylight basement, and evidently tonight my daughter decided she would sneak some vodka in the sparkling grape juice, and the result was ugly.

my wife, who had a red wine buzz working, thinks we should totally give up alcohol, but i dunno. Seeing a child puking is brutal, to say the least (we practice moderate consumption, usually a drink or two on the weekends, a glass of wine or two during the week evenings), but is the answer to knee jerk and totally give up alcohol?

seeing your child puking from alcohol is as horrible as it gets, makes you wonder what the F we are doing as parents, but is it the answer to act like alcohol is the 'devil' and totally abstain.

i'm completely shredded emotionally, would love to hear some advice from parents who've faced a similar scenario :(
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Man, that's really rough.

No, alchohol isn't the devil and, no, don't jump on yourselves as the bad guys. Just own up. Talk to her.

Sounds like the fact you're posting on a forum that you don't talk to her too well. Just saying. Might be something to consider.
 
At least you didn't wind up here... :thumbs:

cfiles951.jpg


Jefferson County Court House.
 
Whoo boy...what an evening.

At first blush, I'd say "kids will be kids" and curiosity is pretty natural. Problem is when curiosity is focused on activities that are less than productive and snitching some of the family Vodka isn't a great activity. I'm not a child psychologist (just a dad of 17 and 19 year old guys) but I can tell you what I'd do. Suddenly going "dry" might look hypocritical to the kids, and if there is any additional curiosity, force them to find answers elsewhere....not what you are after. I'd try to force some good out of the bad. This would seem to be the absolute perfect time to sit your daughter down and talk to her about alcohol, and adult choices in general. Choices have consequences. Drinking responsibly is a choice and has to be undertaken, legally, and with respect to the consequences that can occur if it's not taken seriously and responsibly.

I don't have all the answers.....it's a tough road for us parents out here. On the one hand, you have to protect your kids from the bad things out there but I think you can "overdo it" in that there is a natural curiosity that has to be addressed. When my boys turned 16, I started letting them have a single glass of red wine with big dinners (Thanksgiving, Christmas) knowing full well the farthest they were going after dinner was to the TV to play XBox or the couch for a nap.... :) My goal was to satisfy their curiosity in a safe and controlled environment about what the adults were doing. Some folks will have very different opinions on this and that's fine, but I've always tried to be very honest with my two and answer any question they have. So far, so good. A very important point is to talk to them like the young adults they are and give them the respect of the truth....even when they may not like it. I always talk to my boys like they are inexperienced peers.....I tell them "what's up" and offer all the advice I can. I try to never lecture and talk down to them "Learn from my mistakes...." is how I sometimes start conversations. Talk to them, all the time. Find out how they are feeling, what they are worried about, what they are curious about.

Having said all this, I can say that unfortunately there have come times where I had to put my foot down, hard. Sometimes, it's got to be done. On those unfortunate occasions, I've always told my guys that "...I told you not do X, and told you there would be consequences. You chose to ignore me, and because of your actions, it's time for me to take action." I think it's important to make sure they know there are hard and fast rules, that don't change, that they can choose to follow or not and not following family rules, much like not following the rules in the greater society out there, have real consequences.

Good luck, my friend - B.B.S.
 
I have a 15 yr old and my wife and I have always tried to talk to him about values, goals, morals and consequences. Thats what the other parents in this thread have said-open dialogue with kids is vital. Let em know you are there and care.

For me, its as important to relate my MISTAKES to my son as it is as important to convey my goals for him. I let him know my values are based upon EXPERIENCE.

That being said, what you described was an incident, not a moral catastrophy. A kid puking is not as "horrible as it gets" . Its dumb shit, my son does dumb stuff all the time.

All good parents can do is say a little prayer that the kids have listened to their parental guidance well enough to survive the dumb stuff.


Good luck, talk to her and her siblings.
 
Very well said B.B.S. but as we all know sometimes kids will be kids and have to learn on their own. You hope that you can teach them right but in the end it will be their decision to make and as much as you want to be their when an important decision is to be made chances are you will not be. I guess my point is that kids/teenagers to some extent have to learn on their own all part of growing up.
 
Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

If you tell kids they can't, they will. If you punsih them, they will rebel. If you are honest with them, they may still do it.

This is not a big deal and I personally would not make a big deal out of it other then to say, when you play with fire you
will get burned. The chances are, your kid will not rush to drink after the unpleasant experience and that is all it is.

Brian
 
some good advice here, thanks. Yeah, we talk to them alot, but sometimes they will try something they know is wrong, i know i did my share of that. It seems a lot less 'bad' today, at least it was in our house and not at some party where god knows what could have happened to her. She really regrets her decision, and now she will be getting a lesson in consequences for her actions, she knew one of our non-negotiable rules is 0 tolerance for drugs / alcohol.

and what really made it a bummer was me and the wife and been whispering to each other about our plans for when everyone left, talk about a buzzkill
 
As the father of 13 children, I can assure you that what you child did was in the range of normal. I would recommend you viewing it as a sort of education process for her. Now she knows that everything has a price. In moderation the price is what we are willing to in, in extreme the price is very very steep. I have found that denying children this process of education can be the wrong thing to do. They will experiment and they will try things. The trick for parents is to educate them and provide as reasonable a safe environment as we can as they experiment and test the world. Alcohol will be one of those thngs most kids will test.

I remember my 14 year old daughter wanted to smoke cigars. She was insistant that since her father did it she had the right to do so. I took one of my most cheapest, fatest, nastiest cigar and let her smoke it with me. About 20 minutes into it she ran out of the room puking. Since then she neve wanted to smoke anything again.

Raising kids is hard. What works for one parent often may not work for another due to personality and family chemistry difference. I just don't think screaming or yelling at your daughter or throwing out the alcohol will solve the problem. We have a family custom. About one Friday night a month I talk out all of my bottles of booze and shot glasses and let all my kids have a taste of what's in all the bottles. We go from single malt to 151 Bacardi. All the kids from 12-26 with me and my wife sit around the table and have a tasting session. Not only do the kids learn about alcohol, but it demystifies it for them.

What I have found out is that all the kids now do not see the booze as 'forbidden fruits' but rather as something nasty that they can have if the ask. Not of them seem to want it. The same daughter that wanted to start smooking also wanted to drink. At a wedding, she was 16, she wanted to drink so we warned her of the cigar and that she may not feel good the next morning. She informed us that she could hold her booze so we let her, under a control environment. Needless to say after a few glasses of odd conconctions, she started to puke. The next morning she felt like crap.SHe is not 21 and she has not been drunk since then.

Again, not everything works for all families, but try to view this as an educational experience for her. She will appreciate it if you just talk to her about what happened and helped her to understand it. Give her the power to control the world she lives in, to know its boundaries. To try to put her in a sterile box will only have her rebel and not give her the tools she need to deal with things once she does go out of the house and has ample access to things.

Good luck. I hope that some of what I have said helps.. HooooaahhHH!! :blush:
 
The most important thing is to keep the lines of communication open. Once they are broken they are damn hard to re-open. Show concern with a lot of love thrown in. Be sure normal teen "I've gotta try it" does not turn into a full blown problem.
 
yeah, we've talked alot today, they know they screwed up (both of them were involved), and we always make sure we explain to them why we do what we do. Some good will come from this incident, of that i'm sure, but last night when she was puking it didn't seem like it.

thanks again for all the support :thumbs:
 
Wow, some great conversation here, we take very much the same approach with our three kids as cigarsarge, Saxjazzman and BBS have written about already.

My Mom has always reminded me that sometimes kids will simply step off the path that they are walking and attempt to trudge their own trail through the wilds. Patience, love and communication is all you can give them during those trying times and hopefully, with all that we taught them through the years, they will find their way back to the trail.


:cool:
 
Two questions. Did the same happen to you and did you turn out to be an ass or not? Just part of growing up as the path you teach them is not a straight line but a journey into life.
 
Saxjazzman said:
As the father of 13 children, I can assure you that what you child did was in the range of normal.
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Where's the OMG smiley with the big friggin eyes! 13? In your job? I hope your dual military full bird colonels to support all of them kids! ;)

I remember my 14 year old daughter wanted to smoke cigars. She was insistant that since her father did it she had the right to do so. I took one of my most cheapest, fatest, nastiest cigar and let her smoke it with me. About 20 minutes into it she ran out of the room puking. Since then she neve wanted to smoke anything again.
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Ha... my parents did this to me with liquor. They were drinking, I wanted to try some, so they gave me the nastiest shot of gin I assume they could find (or maybe they like it, I dunno!). Tasted like I was french kissing a juicy pine tree! Nasty, but it kept me off the liquor until the weekend before I turned 21!

---John Holmes...
 
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