Posts
So I've been worried.
I've had two interesting conversations in the past week with people who know something about the subject firsthand: a police officer & a pediatrician. I'll post those conversations later on.
Naturally I've been wondering what the story is with Catholic schools seeing as how that's where we're headed in the fall. Ed and I have been assuming that Catholic high schools probably have at least somewhat lower drug use but we have no way of knowing. The world of parochial schools is new to us.
This morning, excavating the stack on my kitchen table, I found Jaye Greene's report on public schools:
Parents reflexively believe that suburban public schools provide children with safer and more wholesome environments than their urban counterparts. This report finds that the comforting outward signs of order and decency in suburban public schools don’t reflect real student behavior. Using hard national data on high school students, this report by Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jay P. Greene and Senior Research Associate Greg Forster finds that urban and suburban high schools are virtually identical in terms of widespread sexual activity and alcohol use. Additionally, about 40% of 12th graders in both urban and suburban schools have used illegal drugs, and 20% of suburban 12th graders and 13% of urban 12th graders have driven while high on drugs. Both types of students are about equally likely to engage in other delinquent behaviors such as fighting and stealing.
Sex, Drugs, and Delinquency in Urban and Suburban Public Schools
Jay P. Greene & Greg Forster
I'd forgotten that.
My quick skim of Greene's paper incited a brand-new, top o' the morning Google quest for studies of Catholic schools and drugs, et voilà:
Sex, Drugs, and Catholic Schools
"Private religious schools reduce teen sexual activity, arrests, and cocaine use. Contrary to popular belief, private religious schools do not achieve these results by enrolling better-behaved students."
and:
Private religious schools had much lower rates of sexual activity, arrest, and cocaine use. The differences persisted even after family characteristics were taken into account. When the authors controlled for the possibility that parents likely to produce better-behaved children might also be more likely to enroll them in a private religious school, they found that parents were more likely to choose religious private schools for children at greatest risk for problem behavior.
Looks like there's interesting data on subgroups (Catholic schools don't improve the behavior of boys living with single parents, overall, for instance). But for our own particular subgroup (boy, two-parent home), it's all good news.
25 comments:
What I wonder about is whether schools themselves--e.g., via their health classes-- have any significant on drug use, or whether it's more a question of the different peer groups that different schools offer.
I remember being shocked to find out in my senior year that most of my fellow honors students got drunk *every weekend*. I sort of assumed - much like their parents, I bet - that they were too smart to be so stupid. I knew plenty of people who got drunk and smoked pot, but they were all self-destructive loner types, and it was obvious they were in trouble, though many of their parents just didn't care.
I understand the appeal of excessive drinking and drugs when you feel your life it worthless: why not have some fun while destroying yourself? But I just can't understand taking that risk when you are fundamentally happy with your life (of course they might have been stressed out of their minds - many of them had extracurriculars till 5 or 6pm, then did hw till 12 or 1am, then had to get up by 6am).
I was completely immune to the allure of alcohol and drugs - too much of a control freak and very risk adverse - as was my dh. I'm trying to figure out how to cultivate that in my kids. I plan to implant the common sense rule to never, ever, EVER drink (or use drugs, though I hope to impress on them that the risks just aren't worth it) without:
a) knowing exactly what you are getting,
b) knowing what the risks are (from someone who ISN'T currently high or trying to get you to try it), and
c) making sure you have a person you trust implicitly - who will remain sober - to watch over you.
Other than that and ensuring they have accurate - not scare-mongering - info on the risks and effects, I'm not sure what to do other than work hard so they have common sense - and they can use it - and pray hard.
-forty-two
My offspring are now 30, 28, and 19.
My advice?
1. Listen to your kids.
2. Listen to your kids.
3. Listen to your kids. Make it safe for them to talk to you.
4. Listen to your kids' friends.Make it safe for them to talk to you.
5. Know the values that your kids' friends' parents espouse. If your kids' friends' parents allow or condone drinking or drug use, make it difficult for your kids to spend time at their house, and very, very easy for your kids' friends to spend time at your house.
6. Let your kids know ahead of time what the consequences of drinking or alcohol will be.
42 - interesting about the Honors kids.
I'm hearing the opposite (from the pediatrician & from a step-mom of a boy in serious trouble with drugs) -- but weekend drinking may not hit the "tipping point" for academic dysfunction. (I better get that post up next - this is the conversation with the pediatrician & the parent.)
Liz - When you say "listen to your kids," what do you mean exactly?
I don't mean to sound stupid --- but I'm wondering whether you mean create a relationship in which your kids will feel safe talking to you OR listen for subtext OR both or something a little different ---?
Glad to hear what your advice on kids' parents; this has been a question in my mind.
In your experience, then, it "works" to have the kids spend their time at your house, not elsewhere?
(We're probably all interested in any advice you have to share on this subject! I know I am.)
I am HIGHLY suspicious that the constant focus on drugs in "character education" produces more drug use.
There's at least some data on DARE showing increased drug use in DARE kids as opposed to kids who didn't go through DARE. As a young friend of ours said, "We always smoked pot wearing our DARE shirts."
Years ago I read a great line about Roseanne Barr (I think she was still "Barr" at that point).
"She never saw a line she didn't cross."
I have a lot of that personality myself, and I'm pretty sure 24-7 character ed would kick my own rebellious spirit into gear.
For most people, it's really really really about peers.
The single easiest way to avoid doing drugs is to not realize they are there. That means that your friends don't do them, aren't interested in them, and this last one is really important: aren't savvy to them.
Once someone is savvy enough to realize how many of their counterparts are high or drunk or stoned or tripping, it's really difficult to avoid participating. A person become anesthestized to the issues or dangers or concerns around it, and it seems no different than any other element of socialization.
The subculture of drugs has its own rules, its own in-and-outness, its own social conventions. If you aren't in that world, then when you are confronted with it, it'll feel odd--you won't know how to behave. but once htat's overcome, and you feel you are part of that peer group, part of that culture, the things holding you back from actual drug use slip away. And, you want the same credential as everyone else. In that subculture, the bad trip story is street cred, the nonchalance you can maintain watching someone snort heroin is seen as maturity, etc.
This is the same for teen sex. If you hang out with a group of kids that would be ashamed to talk about sex, or ashamed to admit they'd had it, then even if they have, you don't realize, and you're less likely to feel like you're the weird one for holding out. But once you're in a world where oral sex in the bathroom at a party is normal, it's difficult to keep your own sense of what the big deal was, and you're judged by your reaction.
" I sort of assumed - much like their parents, I bet - that they were too smart to be so stupid."
Richard Feynman, in one of his autobiographical essays in either "Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman" or "What do you care what other people think", wrote that he was curious about the drugs of the time (LSD and such), but that he enjoyed playing with ideas so much, that he didn't want to try something that might damage his brain. An eminently sensible decision, I think.
"In your experience, then, it "works" to have the kids spend their time at your house, not elsewhere?"
My family wasn't like this, but one of my friends' family was. They were always welcoming of their chidrens' friends, and it was the house that everyone spent time at. They didn't insist on it, but it turned out that way and it was great.
These are some quotes in a Washingtonian article: Kids From Nearly 50 High Schools Told Us What They Won’t Tell You.
“Wealthier kids don’t have a full sense of life. All they know is Montgomery County or Northern Virginia, and it’s just like a fairy-tale land.”
—Ben, 17, Gonzaga, DC
“Alcohol has unified everyone—it’s the glue. I’ll be at parties like, ‘Weird. I’ve never been with these people in my life. I never thought I’d be standing here with so-and-so.’ Everyone’s like, ‘I love you, man.’ ”
—Liz, 17, Bethesda–Chevy Chase
Reading this made me sad because my husband's 18 year-old brother didn't drink or do drugs, but he was killed in a car accident. His friend fell asleep at the wheel. However, it didn't stop people from speculating that the two teens had been drinking and both boys went to a christian school.
Allison, your comments make so much sense, and I can relate to what you’re saying when I try to remember way back to my own teen years.
Many kids go along to get along, I think.
My older kid mostly disdains the worst values of teen culture, and will probably never win any popularity contest. The younger one passionately wants to be as cool as the coolest kids in her grade. Either is susceptible to the lure of inappropriate drugs and sex, but I worry more about the younger one.
Tex,
I think you're right that kids, like everyone else, do go along to get along, but I think there's another layer to it.
Most people by high school or college aren't hazing or otherwise bullying someone into doing drugs or drinking; they are perfectly comfortable with there being a kid who doesn't do those things and is still a "cool kid". But that cool kid has to play the part, still. they can't turn anyone in, they can't act shocked, they can't act afraid. they have to still be in the subculture, and really, if your'e in that subculture, what would keep you from TRYING drugs or a lot of drinking or whatever? Fear that it might mess up your brain? If you see kids who seem fine a day or two later, that's a lot more powerful than some claim of long term memory problems or health problems. And then, over time, the fear of the bad things goes away as you're part of the subculture--even as the stakes get higher and higher. (And at some point, the culture takes over: you're so used to someone being unable to drive themselves home, or needing to be taken to the hospital that that's a normal weekend...and the sober kid is the one who drives them home or to the hospital, etc. Who wants THAT responsibility? Might as well drink, too.)
re: Feynman not wanting to mess with his brain: our culture is different now. Kids are given psychoactives by doctors, told to take them by parents and teachers. We now have a new metaphor, and that metaphor is "brain chemistry imbalance is like being a diabetic". It's hard to help a teen understand why some psychoactives are okay and others aren't, especially when the side effects are DRAMATIC. We "mess with our brains" all the time, and we don't see the brain as being molested by these chemicals; we think of the brain now as a system involving chemicals.
A fascinating book by Theodore Dalrymple called Romancing Opiates talks about the utter and complete myth surrounding opiates-- how it's a lie about how hard they are to kick, how terrible the withdrawal, how they unlock your mind or otherwise lead you to better poetry or art etc. You'd think that a real way to get people to see what a disaster drugs are is to break the mythology by showing them actual junkies, but it turns out that the whole subculture wants to maintain these myths. Even drug-abuse-counseling industry propagates them (just as the educational consultants and interventionists rely on failed curriculum)mythsand of course, junkies are lying to everyone including themselves, so mostly, it's hard to just tear off the veneers and show the patheticness underneath.
And, you want the same credential as everyone else.
That's a great way of putting it!
Reading this made me sad because my husband's 18 year-old brother didn't drink or do drugs, but he was killed in a car accident.
That was one of the horrifying aspects of Green's report... (hope I remember correctly...)
Suburban kids had a FAR higher rate of driving while drunk than urban kids, which makes sense, of course, since they have to drive to get places.
But of course it reminded me that when you live in the suburbs you're going to be living amongst -- driving amongst -- drunk drivers, including drunk teen drivers.
One of the scariest things I ever read, back when the TIMES was running it's anti-SUV series, was a reminder that all those great big enormous Chevy Suburbans would one day be OLD great big enormous Chevy Suburbans being driven by teens.
oh, boy
Ed had lunch with a new colleague on Thursday. The guy told him that his only child died of a drug overdose at college last year.
He was 21.
Drug use at college is out of control, made worse by the 60s boomers who've become administrators and who fondly recall their own phase of "experimenting", so they don't even pay attention to how far their student population is past experimenting.
Students that participate in hard core drug use of cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, numerous hallucinogens is the norm on college campuses, in addition to overwhelming amounts of drinking and marijuana.
And this is again a place where you're safest from it if you simply don't know it exists. That's still possible, but it's getting more difficult.
Feynman not wanting to mess with his brain: our culture is different now.
It's a bit off-topic, but I knew Feynman when I was a kid in late '60s Pasadena.
If anything there were a lot more drugs floating around in that respectable mid- to upper class social set than I see now.
He was just a pretty singular individual, who was going to make his own decisions.
Interesting synchronicity -- I was just re-reading Glieck's biography of Feynman, Genius. Although Feynman reportedly gave up alcohol early in his career because he was afraid it would negatively affect his brain, in his later years he did experiment with drugs, including marijuana and LSD.
Here's the relevant section: (pp.405-406)
Meanwhile, Feynman was drawn to Erhard and other "flaky people" as Gweneth [his wife] referred to some of his new friends -- partly because curiosity and nonconformity had long been his trademarks. The youth movments of the sixties had caught up with him. They had brought his own style into vogue -- his tieless, pomp-free outlook, the persona that he and Carl [his son] privately spoke of as "aggressive dopiness." He grew his graying hair into a long mane... He let not nly Werner Erhard, but John Lilly, an aficionado of dolphins and sensory-deprivation tanks, befriend him. He tried to ignore what he called Lilly's "mystic hokey-poke" but nonetheless submerged himself in his tanks, in the hope of having hallucinations, just as he had tried so hard to observe his own dream states forty years earlier. Death was not far from his thoughts [he had had several cancer surgeries]...He tried marijuana and (he was more embarrassed about this) LSD. He listened patiently as Baba Ram Dass, the former Richard Alpert of Harvard, author of the cult book Be Here Now, instructed him on how to attain out-of-body experiences. He practiced these -- OBE's, in the current jargon, not willing to believe any of the mystical paraphernalia, but happy and interested to imagine his ego floating here or there, outside the room, outside the sixty-five-year-old body that was failing him so grievously.
Very cool, Ben, that you had an opportunity to know him. He certainly was an original. Amazing how his legacy and influence just keeps on growing, twenty years after his death.
I've just ordered the book his daughter Michelle put together, of letters he wrote to people in all walks of life.
I'm roughly the same age as his kids, Carl & Michelle. We went to summer camp together.
So it's not as if we were having long, deep philosophical conversations. But he did like to chat and was happy to talk about physics, astronomy, or anything else with anybody, including kids.
I was in high school with Carl. I remember going over to his house to study one time, but either I didn't talk much with his dad, or I just don't remember it. Darn! I enjoyed being friends with Carl, and would love to know what he's up to now.
it may be time for me FINALLY to read Barrett Seaman's book BINGE.
sigh
K9sasha -- you didn't know Alan Zorthian, did you? The son of Richard Feynman's artist pal Jirayr Zorthian? We were friends when we were around 11/12. I've recently become Facebook friends with him.
So I think Alan and I are about two years older than Carl.
Hey Ben,
No I didn't know Alan Zorthian, but I looked him up in my high school alumni directory. He graduated two years before Carl and I.
Small world, eh?
Muir High School rules!
Did you go to Muir?
Hey, I don't know where you live but did you see there's a big fire in Sierra Madre? People were stranded at Chantry Flats overnight.
Are the fires calming down at all??
C. was saying at dinner tonight he thought they were...
oh!
A family dinner topic for the Chinese foldable thingie.
Yes, I did go to Muir, but I've lived in San Francisco since 1990. You can look me up on Facebook if you want.
Cheers,
Ben
Post a Comment