My daughter got suspended from school last night.

[seaglass]

She was at a school dance with a friend who was very drunk, she was trying to help her friend and one thing led to another and her friend got caught. All the girls that were at the house with my daughter's friend got named and my daughter admitted that she had a sip of a drink. (I don't know exactly how much she had but I know when I picked her up at the school she was stone cold sober, so I know she didn't have much).

She got suspended from school for 5 days.

This is what I know: she's 17 and it is illegal for her to drink. I don't want her to drink and I'm not happy that she did and that she is suspended from school. But (other than the suspension) I did the same thing when I was a teen and I understand the curiosity about trying alcohol.

I'm not trying to make excuses - I'm just saying that I understand. And this may be why I am not freaking out about this.

What type of punishment do you think is appropriate? Is the school suspension enough or do you think we should have out own separate punishment?

I'm thinking we should have our own punishment so she understands that there are consequences from us for her decision. In addition, I want my son to see there are consequences so he won't do the same thing.

[billyskank]

1. Given that I was regularly getting drunk when I was 17

I don't believe I can offer any advice.

[Wetzelbill]

4. damn, if that was a prerequisite

maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut.

[billyskank]

5. Well, otherwise it's a bit of a "Do as I say, but not as I did" thing

it would seem to me.

[seemunkee]

10. but what was the drinking age then

I was 18 my senior year and it was legal to drink then.

Not sure about punishment, driving privileges comes to mind though.

[billyskank]

14. 18

Always has been in Britain for as long as I know.

[BlueIris]

2. ...egh. Well, take this with the bag of salt you must as I'm a non-Mom,

but I think you should either a) let the suspension stand as punishment enough, although remind her that if anything like this ever happens again, dire consequences (whatever they might be) will follow, or b) assign a not-so-severe punishment now, if you really feel that lack of a parental warning for her in addition to the suspension will make your son feel it's "no big deal" to go the same route. It's just that I've seen parents go waaaaaay overboard when these kinds of things occur, unnecessarily humiliating and stigmatizing their children when other authority figures have already done that, and it just makes the kids more likely to rebel. Especially with regard to the issue, subject, or substance the kids screwed up with in the first place.

I mean, she's your kid, you probably know what is most appropriate to do here, but I'd advise a stern lecture--perhaps about knowing and respecting her own limits and the law in the future--and nothing else. You don't want to encourage her to do things like this again and again and again to "get revenge" on Mom and Dad for what she might wind up feeling was 'punishment overkill.'

[Wetzelbill]

3. I would say that

something relatively simple would work, like she is grounded for two weeks or a month, other than school activities. But you probably should give her a separate punishment. Just to let her, and your son, know there are consequences. It sounds like she was trying to be a good friend and it was nothing too serious, that is easy enough to understand. The separate punishment should be a good deterrent, I would think. Nothing too severe though, as you would run the risk of going to far and making this worse.

[Ravenseye]

6. Something simliar happened to my sister

While I had far more days of suspension all throughout highschool, none of them were for booze. She got caught once with a group of other kids in similiar circumstances as your daughter, and she got 5 days in school suspension. So sounds about the same as what happened to her 16 years ago...

As far as appropriate...What would the punishment be trying to teach your daughter to do? What was her bad decision? That she tried alchohol? I don't care how good a kid she is, or your son, they're going to still drink. I don't know what an additional punishment would do. I might sit down with both of them, separately, and talk about what she did wrong, why the punishment is just, and what she could have done differently. That's how I'd play it. Kids that age get so defensive, that just saying 'you were wrong' doesn't usually work. It might be more constructive to say "Do you think you did anything wrong, and if so what?" and lead the conversation. What kind of bad things can happen with drinking and driving, underage drinking, breaking the law, etc. What she could have done differently without becoming a social outcast, etc

[seaglass]

17. My husband and his fellow firefighters saved my daughter's

ex-boyfriend's life when he was in a drunk driving accident. My daughter was devastated by this and is adamantly anti-drunk driver. Even last night she made sure the driver had nothing to drink.

Yes, I know she was going to try alcohol but it was a bad decision because it is illegal. She has been taught not to drink illegally, the idea of punishment is for her to not do it again. I don't expect that it will make her never try a drink again but it may make her think twice or at least reduce the number of times she does it.

[Ravenseye]

25. I don't know that anything you'll do will help

I think a rational discussion is probably the best option. More punishment will probably do no good at that age. She's practically an adult, and kids that age tend to see the American drinking age as some sort of puritan obsurdity (as do I).

Still we live in this country, so I don't know...Personally, I'd berate my child for being so stupid as to be with a group of kids who drink underage and then go to a school function. That's just idiotic.

[femmocrat]

7. Whew! I thought you were going to say....

that you thought it was so "unfair" of the school to suspend her! So many parents come in to school demanding special treatment for their children instead of letting them learn from their mistakes and suffer the consequences.

I think the school was fair... they could have given her 10 days! Your own punishment is really up to you, but I think a grounding would be sufficient. That, and the strong advice to call you if there is any alcohol being served at an event she attends.

[seaglass]

11. No, I can't really complain because I understand that life is

unfair and my daughter needs to learn that too. I am not saying this to her, she will draw her own conclusions.

The suspension itself is not unfair - it's a school rule that is known in advance so you can't really object to it. Well you could but it would be stupid, the kids know the rules and my daughter broke the rules.

The dean said she was sure there were other kids at the dance who had been drinking but they didn't catch them so there wasn't anything they could do. She was very nice and said she and my daughter had some good bonding time, she kept telling us that my daughter was a good kid and basically her hands were tied.

My daughter is not on academic suspension so she will get all of her work for the week. The next punishment is not 10 days - it's academic suspension.

[Shakespeare]

41. Excellent advice. n/t

[seaglass]

42. Funny, as it turns out, one of the parents did exactly that.

Marched down to the school Monday morning to protest the suspension, insisting her daughter didn't drink and shouldn't be punished. Her daughter told her she didn't drink - I wonder how that fits with her daughter admitting it to the school. The school wasn't buying it.

[seaglass]

8. Ugghh, my husband just went out to get the paper and found

some messages some classmates left for her laughing at her for getting suspended and calling her an alcoholic. Very mean. I'm not showing her because I know how sensitive and dramatic she is, she would want to move out of town and never go back to school.

[evirus]

15. students can be real assholes sometimes

i know from expearnece

[ikojo]

22. You may want to show the notes to the school

This is harrassment and could escalate to online harrassment via myspace.com. I don't want to sound alarmist but it happens.

As far as punishment goes, I think she is probably humiliated enough. I would stress that she is not to get in a car where the driver has had even ONE drink, that regardless of the time of night she can call you and you will pick her up and NOT judge her harshly.

I wasn't a drinker or a partier but my older siblings were and they engaged in behaviors that would horrify them should their kids do the same thing. One of my sisters was a hard core partier and she has the type of relationships with her kids that allows them to call her or her husband at any time to be picked up from a party, rather than get in a car with someone who has been drinking. Of this sister's kids only one drinks now (she's in the Marines) and the other abstains from alcohol.

[seaglass]

26. I ripped them up, they upset me a lot. I asked my daughter if

anyone was giving her a hard time and she said no, she talked to a lot of her friends last night and they know she wasn't under the influence so they have a lot of sympathy for what happened. She is really worried about rumors spreading at school next week and would be devastated if she saw those drawings.

She knows she can call us anytime, no matter where she is or how late it is if she is in a bad situation. I hope we handled it well enough last night that she still trusts us to do that - I think we did.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

9. I don't think there should've been any punishment from anyone. Drinking

shouldn't be illegal, period. But that's just me. I would be more inclined to teach her it's ok to drink, but she shouldn't get caught

Now, if she drove a car while drunk, then I would give both you, the school, and the cops the thumbs up to skin her alive.

[seaglass]

12. I am in support of an 18 year old drinking age, but still - she is

17 so it would still be illegal.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

20. Well, if 18 is your personal limit, then I guess you'll just have to punis

her accordingly.

My personal opinion is that what I drink isn't the governmetns business, so niether is how old I am when I drink it, so I'll just politely give them the finger

[evirus]

13. just let her be

look at it this way she just took a sip and didn't like chug it. so if anything she has some self control

[philosophie_en_rose]

16. Meh. Seems pretty tame

I have no kids, but the first thing that I would do is interrogate her. Who brought the alcohol? How much did she really drink? What was it? Does she realize the chance of GHB or other drugs in the alcohol?

To be honest, I don't think a sip of alcohol is that big of a deal. But 1) doing it at school is just asking for trouble and 2) the dangers that could come along with the alcohol are a very big deal.

[Midlodemocrat]

18. She is a great kid for trying to help her friend.

She's learned fantastic life lessons from you guys; that you should take care of a friend in need.

You are to be commended for raising such a compassionate child.

[Heidi]

19. Did the drinking take place at school, or on private property?

I've gotta say, I believe we've gone waaaaaaaaay 'round the bend with zero tolerance policies. I can understand schools needing to regulate what happens on school property, but when that regulation extends to activities in private homes, it sort of smacks of the state attempting to be parents-by-proxy.

[seaglass]

23. Private property. All I can say is I'm glad I was a teen in the 70s.

I don't agree with the zero tolerance policy at all but I'm sure schools have to have a one-size-fits-all to defend themselves against complaining parents.

[Heidi]

24. I tend to agree with the approach

in many European countries. In Switzerland, for example, you can buy alcohol when you're 16, but you can't get a driver's license until you're 18.

[hotforteacher]

21. As a mother of a daughter, and a teacher to teenagers

I can say this much--punishments are completely bullshit unless the nature of the offense is something extreme...even then, natural consequences step in.

1. Your daughter (and in my estimation, you have raised her well seeing as though she wasn't falling over drunk and making out with some urchin and not taking responsibility for her actions--kudos!) got her consequence. Her friends are already giving her shit and she got a suspension. Worst of all, she broke your trust. That needs to be discussed if it has not already.

2. If you do believe that additional action on your part needs to be taken, then go for something logical. I would suggest having her volunteer somewhere that caters to alcohol recovery (service learning). Something that directly relates to the offense. It is my opinion that she already got a societal "unrelated" punishment with the suspension (artificial boundaries)--now you can get her to think further about what COULD happen. It would excise her personal time, and get her a first-hand view of the wild world of excessive drinking. Or, simply have her do a research project on teenage alcohol consumption and it's consequences and discuss this with her.

If the goal is to educate her and make her think more broadly about the offense, I think this would be appropriate. If you really need to show some parental force, then eliminate something that she loves and make her earn that privilege back via concrete steps (e.g., give her a really early curfew, ground her after school). I guess that my overwhelming opinion in this is that you don't want her to attempt to become more sneaky (like I would have), and want her to become more trust-worthy and mature.

Like I said earlier, she sounds like a pretty solid kid already. Good on you for already instilling within her some common sense--she is displaying internal regulators that most teenagers would not have the tenacity to show.

Good luck.

[huskerlaw]

27. Make sure that the days she's at home

serving the suspension aren't the slightest bit fun.

Have a huge list of housework-related chores for her to do. Get her up at the same time in the morning. During those 5 days, revoke privileges like phone, internet, etc.

That way, your punishment reinforces the school's punishment...while adding a bit of your own.

But most importantly, and I'm sure you've done this already, is to talk to her about what happened and how to ensure that it won't happen again. As an example/suggestion, my parents were 100% against drinking and made it perfectly clear that drinking as prohibited. However, they also understood that sometimes teenagers find themselves in situations like the one your daughter was in last night. My parents gave me on out. They told me that if I was ever in a situation where others were drinking, I could call them and they would come pick me up. No questions asked, no punishment (assuming I wasn't involved in the drinking). I actually took them up on it once and they followed through. Having that out was amazingly helpful.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

28. I think the suspension is enough...

If they weren't doing anything about it, I'd say ground her. But she doesn't need to pay more than once, as long as you let her know that you agree with the school's decision.

I think what's most important here is to let her know why she's being punished; and why you feel that she should not be drinking.

[FILAM23]

29. Under those circumstances

I would let the suspension be the only punishment. If however you
feel it is necessary to impose more then may I suggest that during
the 5 day suspension (school hours only) she be required to stay at
home and study.

[seaglass]

30. That's pretty much what we decided. She can only go out when

she has to go to work, otherwise she stays home. She'll be getting all her school work on Tuesday so she'll have plenty to occupy her time during the day.

[malta blue]

31. I was suspended from boarding school for drinking

my junior year. I had to come home for five days. During the five days I was home, my mom made me clean the house from top to bottom each and every day with no music or tv to keep me company. I had to polish all the family silver and clean the grout between all the tiles in the bathroom. I even went to my grandma's house and cleaned her place too. Also, I had to study every night for two hours. Needless to say, I was also not allowed to have friends over or go visit. Not saying this is what you should do - just relating my own experience.

[xchrom]

32. i guess i think the suspension IS the punishment.

i mean i wouldn't make the duration of the suspension a vacation at home.

however the suspension is the punishment -- it's her matter to deal with both at home and at school -- and after that it's over.

[seaglass]

34. Yes, that is a punishment but it is a punishment by the school.

We have given her a fairly mild punishment and she has accepted it. She knows what she did was wrong and not worth it. She also knows that we appreciate that she was honest and accepted her punishment rather than lying about what she did.

For now, I'm comfortable about where we all stand. I'm just worried about her getting behind in school.

[InvisibleTouch]

33. Seems to me that if she admitted having had a drink...

...and then you punish her on top of that, she'll get the message that if she tells the truth, she'll land in even more trouble. You'll encourage her to hide it from you the next time. I'd say, acknowledge her for being honest, and let the school's punishment stand as-is.

[seaglass]

36. There is no way to make that message disappear. One of the

girls that was with her lied to the dean about drinking and got off scot-free. In addition most of her fellow seniors at the dance had been drinking, they just didn't get caught.

I did repeatedly acknowledge her honesty and she knows it is important. She respects her 2 other friends who were honest but not the one who lied.

[buddhamama]

35. i would have the suspension be the punishment

but use the opportunity to speak with your kids about drinking. as you have said, it is not unusual to be curious and try alcohol.

let her know you understand this curiosity, and while you're not condoning her having tried it, you're willing to give her another chance to make the right decision next time.

[Scooter24]

37. Don't let her have any "free" time while on suspension

Make her write a research paper on effects of alcohol poisoning or something. Make her read a book and write a paper on it. Make sure she's up at 8am every morning. No free time until after school hours. No TV until 4pm. Make her do chores.

Just don't let her use this suspension as a get-out-of-school card. Keep her busy

[retread]

38. Someone help me understand the school's part in this. n/t

[buddhamama]

39. the girls attended a school dance

after having imbibed.

[seaglass]

43. The school will also get involved if the student is on one of the

sports teams and has been caught at a private party.

A couple years ago a kid from the hockey team was at a party where kids were drinking. He got caught and was suspended from school and the team. When you get on a school team you agree to a code of conduct in both your school and private life.

[MiniMandaRuth]

40. A friend once got into something like that.

Her friend would only move if she had a taste of the drink. My friend then smiled politily and sipped a little. She gagged and was holding the cup when she was caught.

Very nasty.

As for punishment... the usual. Take away the property. If she can drive, take the keys and give them back only to drive to work. Take away her cell phone. Stuff like that.

[meegbear]

44. Since she's suspended for 5 days ...

have her grounded for 5 days.

QED

[meegbear]

45. Since she's suspended for 5 days ...

have her grounded for 5 days.

QED

[seaglass]

46. Thanks meegbear, that's what we did. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

47. I think it's inappropriate.

17 year olds need to know how to drink responsibly.

Punishing a kid for taking a sip isn't cool.

[Ariana Celeste]

48. I can tell you what my mom did with me

When I was under 16 I would have been punished (had I gotten caught). But by 16, knowing that I was then making friends who had cars, my mom had a talk with me.

She decided to explain to me about safe drinking, so that if I *did* drink, or was around people who were drinking, I would know what kind of bad signs to look for. She talked to me about alcohol poisoning. And told me that if I was ever in a situation where I needed her to pick me up, to call her. And I did... so we had trust between us about that kind of thing. I would only get punished if I partied and then lied about it, or partied and got in the car with someone who was drinking, or you get my drift- any number of things other than calling her.

Now that worked for me but....

Ultimately you will know what's right for your kid.

[Redstone]

49. Ah, fuck it, nobody's ever going to look at her "permanent record"

(you know the one they use to scare the kids with).

Let her take her lumps from the school and let it go.

It's not that big a deal, seen from the persective of a long life.

Redstone

[reyd reid reed]

50. When my daughter got suspended from school

I added my own punishment because I didn't want the suspension to be more like a long weekend. I got her up in the mornings and put her to work. Cleaning bathrooms, sorting laundry, washing the kitchen floor...all the stuff that I generally do at some point during the day.

She was glad to go back to school.

In the end, you have to deal with it in a manner that you feel is approrpiate. She's lucky she didn't get ticketed for underage drinking...I don't know about where you live, but here it's a mandatory court appearance, community service, alcohol education classes, fines...lots of fun stuff.

And make sure she's aware of ALL the possible consequences, if you haven't already. Legal, familial and physical.

[LisaM]

51. I think the suspsension is enough.

So she had a sip of alcohol (off campus) and was trying to help a drunk friend. The school administrator herself admits that the 5-day suspension is too much. I would just let it go.

[mduffy31]

52. In my day

If you were at a school function and actually blew something on the breathalyzer they could suspend you, but they couldn't if you admitted it and didn't have any evidence that you actually did it. I would fight it.