Grad camp outs

[mexi cali]

Several years ago, my niece went to a camp out with her school mates and over imbibed and woke up with an aggressive, drunk boy attempting to have his way with her.

As bad as that story is, I have many worse from my own teenage years, some of which i still have a hard time believing.

Alcohol has a way of making bad ideas seem good and encourages the growth of muscle and the shrinking of the brain. It makes ugly seem OK and brings out self confidence in those who normally struggle with it.

Bully's can find themselves on the wrong end of a sharp object or a large stick when the nerds they pick on in school have a few to many and decide it's time to even the score through blind side attacks. It happens and the results can be devastating.

Drugs can either make you really happy, really paranoid or really evil. It depends a lot on the drug and the personality of the individual.

Kids need to blow off steam and have fun but the sad fact is that there are always going to be the extremists who simply can't handle intoxicants or who simply don't know when to stop and then you have the makings of a dangerous and volatile situation where people get hurt.

To any parent who can successfully convince their kids without handcuffing them to a register that there may be alternatives to these parties that don't involve the risk, more power.

These gatherings will never stop so I think that best thing to do is talk to your kids openly and honestly without pulling punches and make sure that they understand what they need to understand in order to survive the teen years.

[JadeMerik]

I graduated from a high school in Kelowna a few years ago. Our grad campout was at Postill, and some kid almost died because he drank way too much and then passed out in the bushes. A group of sober kids eventually found him, carried him through the mud, and drove him straight to the hospital. He got his stomach pumped immediately, and the nurse gave him his stomach contents in a bag and told him he should be eternally grateful those kids found him when they did. The bag was see through and pretty darn disgusting looking. Talk about bringing home a message.

Anyways, that was an isolated incident. I think the best thing to do is make sure your kid has a friend who's going to be sober (hopefully with a vehicle) and is responsible enough to look after their peers. Maybe even convince your kid to be that person. I wasn't much of a drinker, so I always stayed sober and took lots of photos.

[OnTheRoadAgain]

Drinking yes, partying check, pot you betcha, general revelry yup. I graduated from MBSS a while back and went to a lot of bush parties. A word of advice - if your daughter is of the impressionable type, that might do something she wouldn't normally do, it might be best for her not to go. She seems to come for a parent that cares for her, so she must know that drinking and driving is dumb. The drive out to bear creek isn't the problem its the people that drive home @ 1am in a vain attempt to make their 12am curfew, that definitely isn't smart. As for the school night - its not the end of the world if she has good grades. Grad is fun, so are parties, talk to her about it and see if she can *bleep* risk vs reward. Ultimately its up to you.

Once again, the curfew isn't the problem, the roads aren't the problem, the alcohol is the main problem with these after- grad parties.
Ultimately, we all know it's really up to the child, regardless of what the parent says.

Just a note: The more a parent is against any intoxicant, the less likely the child will use it.

[OnTheRoadAgain]

LOL, and you're on the inside track of what the RCMP do and do not do... how?

Last year's Penticton camp out got so bad a child was murdered!!! That was the worst of what happened (obviously) but what didn't make the news was the other fights, burns, alcohol poisoning, and sadly, the two rapes. (and yes, I DO have an inside track.)

Parents who keep their kids home, especially those who offer and and assist with a safe alternative - thank you!!!

And this is just from one party.
Parents who have good relationships with their kids always have the inside track!

So, to the kids who listened to their parents and took their wise advice, thanks to you for keeping yourselves safe by not attending the circus.

[OnTheRoadAgain]

Alcohol has a way of making bad ideas seem good and encourages the growth of muscle and the shrinking of the brain. It makes ugly seem OK and brings out self confidence in those who normally struggle with it.

Bully's can find themselves on the wrong end of a sharp object or a large stick when the nerds they pick on in school have a few to many and decide it's time to even the score through blind side attacks. It happens and the results can be devastating.

Drugs can either make you really happy, really paranoid or really evil. It depends a lot on the drug and the personality of the individual.

Kids need to blow off steam and have fun but the sad fact is that there are always going to be the extremists who simply can't handle intoxicants or who simply don't know when to stop and then you have the makings of a dangerous and volatile situation where people get hurt.

To any parent who can successfully convince their kids without handcuffing them to a register that there may be alternatives to these parties that don't involve the risk, more power.

These gatherings will never stop so I think that best thing to do is talk to your kids openly and honestly without pulling punches and make sure that they understand what they need to understand in order to survive the teen years.

P r o f o u n d !!!

[OnTheRoadAgain]

I graduated from a high school in Kelowna a few years ago. Our grad campout was at Postill, and some kid almost died because he drank way too much and then passed out in the bushes. A group of sober kids eventually found him, carried him through the mud, and drove him straight to the hospital. He got his stomach pumped immediately, and the nurse gave him his stomach contents in a bag and told him he should be eternally grateful those kids found him when they did. The bag was see through and pretty darn disgusting looking. Talk about bringing home a message.

Anyways, that was an isolated incident. I think the best thing to do is make sure your kid has a friend who's going to be sober (hopefully with a vehicle) and is responsible enough to look after their peers. Maybe even convince your kid to be that person. I wasn't much of a drinker, so I always stayed sober and took lots of photos.

This is not an isolated incident! I guarantee you that.
Let's hear some more stories about your grad bush parties. These parents are becoming more educated here hopefully,

[tellamon]

I have been to many bush parties in the late 90's in the Kelowna area... some can be quiet and fun. Other times, not so much!! Even house parties can go bad quickly...I do agree things seem to have become more violent then they used to. It's not just fists anymore. Scary!
My son goes to MBSS and does not and will not attend grad camp-out or anything alike while he's under my roof! It's just not safe and some are held too far out of town, so if something does go wrong help is too far away. Thankfully my son doesn't drink, do drugs and is not into partying.

[mexi cali]

Ontheroad. Profound in a eureka, he's got it way or in a what the hell is he talking about here?

[OnTheRoadAgain]

Sorry I don't understand your question.

[jxn894]

from someone who gradded a year ago from this poast, i avoid thoes bush partys i avoid any party that is more then like 3 people, but really the way to stop the bad partying from happeing is to be watching what the kid is doing all the time, know when the partys are going to happen and keep them home that night and take them out to a movie or someting, have access to ther facebook and check up on all messages and make shure they arnt on a messageing sight that you dono about so monater there computers, same with cellphones, have some way so dleating texts cant work and that you can hear the phone conversations, if they go to a freainds make shure that the freainds parent is proper enough to make shure they arent just going to a party from there freainds house, have a alarm systim on the house dont tell them the code so they cant sneek out and monater there bank records, take them for drug tests and if you find they are doing drugs only let them out to go to school and dont let them out of your sight you can do that till there 19 under 19 anyone is still a child and has to be checked up on and ill bet if all parents did that the education level would be higher to, and once there 19 there on there own, basicly takeing care of your kid till there 19 duhh

[grammafreddy]

Personal Attack removed. Trip

[ride365]

I think many people overestimate how many people actually go to these "grad" parties. Out of the 800 people I graduated with I remember hearing about 200 people (at the most) attended. So to put things in perspective when you child feels left out when they are not allowed to attend, they are not going along with the other 3/4 of the grad class. I wanted to go when I was in high school just to see what it was like but after I heard about what happened I was glad I didn't attend. There is really nothing to be gained by the experience so don't worry about not being able to provide this to your children. Legality of underage drinking aside, many people feel that not preventing their children from doing something they are going to "do anyways" is helping them out. Decisions should be made based on the possible outcomes of such a choice not if its a fun thing to do.

[TazzTheCat]

One suggestion may be to take a more proactive approach to these drunken out of control, underage parties, and quietly report them to police when you find out from your teens that they are happening. Then of course, do not allow them to attend. Lots of times these parties do not only consist of the the grad classes, they are also attended by much older men and women. When you get older people attending grad parties, it has to make one wonder why an adult would feel it necessary to hang out with underage drinking youth, when they could be hanging out with their own age peers? I would think it is along the lines of predatory behaviour. Just my 2 cents.

[Dash5]

from someone who gradded a year ago from this poast, i avoid thoes bush partys i avoid any party that is more then like 3 people, but really the way to stop the bad partying from happeing is to be watching what the kid is doing all the time, know when the partys are going to happen and keep them home that night and take them out to a movie or someting, have access to ther facebook and check up on all messages and make shure they arnt on a messageing sight that you dono about so monater there computers, same with cellphones, have some way so dleating texts cant work and that you can hear the phone conversations, if they go to a freainds make shure that the freainds parent is proper enough to make shure they arent just going to a party from there freainds house, have a alarm systim on the house dont tell them the code so they cant sneek out and monater there bank records, take them for drug tests and if you find they are doing drugs only let them out to go to school and dont let them out of your sight you can do that till there 19 under 19 anyone is still a child and has to be checked up on and ill bet if all parents did that the education level would be higher to, and once there 19 there on there own, basicly takeing care of your kid till there 19 duhh

I do agree with the basic gist of what you have to say although a lot of it is either impractical or impossible.

The part that gets me is the quip about if all parents did that the education level would be higher .... I say this because, sadly, your post is so full of spelling and grammar errors and is almost devoid of punctuation that it is extremely difficult to read. I am absolutely not stating this to be insulting, just pointing out the irony of the statement regarding education levels.

[underscore]

<snip>

This is quite hard to read, but the basic gist of it I agree with. It's extremely easy to monitor kids these days yet 99% of parents are too lazy to do it. You can have the alarm company send you a log of when the system was armed/disarmed (ie when they came home), you can log what happens on their computer and get the cell company to send you a log of their texts, don't get them a data package because that's just stupid. Hell you can even get speed governors and GPS loggers put into any car for very little cost.