Id never call the police..I dont trust them any more..one of them feels like he can beat up on small petite women that fail the breath test and hes still out there..

Call the police AND go look for them..

Getting arreseted will shake them and hurt a while but If they were to kill someone it would be horrible forever!

I feel for you. My son also has done this kind of thing :-(

Bartley: "First I wouldn't give them the opportunity to go out unsupervised."

Let's if we have this right.

Your kids of driving age are/would not be allowed out of the house alone without a chaperon? You would tag along on their dates and other activities?

You can't be serious.

Or are you?

If so, living under such a Draconian parental thumb sounds cultish at best. I can't imagine a young adult willfully remaining in your prison for too long. One can very understandably expect any normally developed young adult to escape from such bondage at the earliest opportunity. Unless, of course they are locked and shackled in a basement dungeon.

Absurd.

I'd go out and look for him.  But what I actually did was tell them the harsh realities of drunken driving before they were ever old enough to drink. So when my son felt the need to test his drinking ability, the first thing he did was give his keys to someone else.

I picked him up. He wasn't feeling too good. I explained again how too much alcohol is like poisen to your body. And how glad I was that he chose to be responsible before the first sip.

I don't like to answer hypotheticals--I don't know what I'd do. The only time I "found out" my kid was consuming alcohol in public she was age 14. A tattle-tale church member "saw" her drinking beer from a paper cup. Turned out it was the supervising adults, also charged with taking her home, were tipping a few, not the kids. (Watch Incredible Hulk and that was my reaction.)

I've never worried about her getting abused by cops if pulled over. However, a BPD officer (my in-law) counseled her that there are cops who have biased and harsh feelings toward teen drivers and are less flexible with them. There may be some truth to this as a teen relative driving on Chester Ave. at night with no traffic signaled when she turned. She was cited for not signaling BEFORE she changed lanes to do so. (The judge gave her a stern lecture and dismissed the ticket.)

One blessing of the high gas prices: She must buy her own gas. She tends to drive slower.

Without question, I'd go look for them.  In fact, I did go searching for my oldest daughter a couple of times  when she was out very late (not drinking).   It's better than sitting at home,  wringing your hands while you stare out the window.

Ha Ha now it's her turn.

I go out and look for my daughter. I think she'd be more afraid if I found and picked her up versus the police, LOL!!!!  She also knows if she is caught doing this, I am selling her car immediately!!

In a town this size how would you go look for them?  Where would you begin?  Especially if they were drinking and most likely hiding out.  I suppose my reaction would be to at least go cruising looking for them but that would be more to give myself something to do to keep from having panic attacks than anything.  Would calling the cops help?  I dunno.

I know what would happen when they DID get home though.  It wouldn't involve CPS but it might involve them needing a pardon from the governer before ever driving again.  At least until they were 36 years old.

I tend to agree with Catpaw and the hypotheticals....it would depend on the circumstances.

My daughter has a GPS parent chaperone on her cell phone and she does not know I can set perimeters on it. So, if I needed to find her immediately and she didn't answer her phone or I thought something was up as far as drinking/partying, get on the net and find her.   My daughter also knows when she stays the night somewhere, even at 17, I still call her friends parents to make sure she will be there and what the plan is.

Nancy

I was terrified of her drving home on Rosedale Hwy when all the "westside" drunks were on their way home.  So I drove back and forth on  Rosedale Hwy until I was satisfied there hadn't been any wrecks.  Then I went home and waited for her..........................

Audrey, I probably would have done the same thing.  The REALLY bad thing in a situation like that is every time you hear a siren you freak out.    I think the GPS thing is wonderful on cell phones and all cars driven by teens should be equipped with them.

I had a lady tell me once that she let her daughter go to the movies with friends for the first time (driving) and then decided to go to the theater about the time the movie ended just to "check" on things.  She couldn't find the car in the lot and called the daughters cell.  The daughter said she was in the lobby and about that time came driving up in the lot.  She didn't know mom was sitting there waiting for her.

She lost some priviliges that night.  :-)

Nancy, the GPS on the cell phone is somewhat new with verizon. It costs an additional $10.00 a month and will be worth if I ever use it.  I need to just try it out!  Good thing, my daughter doesn't even know it's on her phone. 

I would go out and find my kid and it would be on. I would definitely not call the cops. I would hate for my kid to receive a death sentence over a DUI........

And I'm sure the cop wouldn't want to have to put up with your mouth....

Mom,

I think you have me confused with your OTHER daughter.

Cat it was you.  Poor Rose used to try to make me feel better by saying, "I'm sure she's OK Mom.".  

I made Rose swear she wouldn't do that to me, but of course she DID.

Hmm, don't remember.  Sorry about that, Mom.

Audrey...our grown kids have selective memories.  I have the same problem with mine...LOL.

Yeah, Nancy.  The older I get the less I remember from my childhood, or even my 20s.  I used to think memories would remain as vivid all my life as they were when I was younger, but more and more people have to describe events to jog my memory.  My sister will say, "you remember Kim--the one who gave us that kitten and the one we went to see Titantic with, etc."  I have NO CLUE!

My kids grew up in their very own real life alcohol aversion treatment program.  Worst case scenario examples of what could happen while drinking and driving presented several times during their lives.  Praise God, when the time came for them to make that decision, they made the right one, and continue to do so to this very day. 

Catherine, it befalls us all.   Our short term memory sifts thru stuff and says "eh..this isn't important..out it goes" and some things go into the long term drawer.  Sometimes so far back it gets really dusty.

I read a piece a while back that said as we get older we don't really forget things, it just takes longer to retrieve them.  :-)

Why do we forget what we want to remember and remember what we wish we could forget.

We should be able to edit our brains.

I find myself nowadays doing what used to freak me out in my parents:  "I just saw a movie...oh...what's it called?  It has the guy...what's his name?  The guy from...that movie about a serial killer...with that girl that used to be on TV in that one show."

20/20 profiled a woman, Jill Price who can remember almost everything since 1980.  Her remarkable memory is a blessing and a curse.  While she can tell her friends what they were doing on any day in any given year, what was on TV any given night, and what she wore, ate and felt, she also remembers in painful detail things that most of us find relief in forgetting. 

I'd like to think I'd never be in this hypothetical position, but I do think it's an excellent talking point/discussion.  It gets right down to the nitty gritty of parental responsibility:  How responsible are we for the things our children do when we're not watching and how can we hold them accountable for the bad choices they make?  My answer is in the spirit of that observation.

I am not a fan of casual alcohol consumption.  I can count, on one hand, how many times I've partook in any alcohol in my 33 years.  I don't think it's necessary for fellowship and it's, essentially, a poison.  I have enough problems with my body that drinking would feel like a self-imposed insult to injury.  KWIM?  BUT, I truly believe that adults have every right to consume alcohol, so long as they do it in a responsible manner.   If you come over for dinner, then I will happily offer you a cocktail.  I just won't drink with you.  My husband, on the other hand, enjoys an occasional libation.  So, to get to my point, our kids see two very different approaches to alcohol.  I worry that seeing my husband drink, and hearing his tales of college, underage, drinking will lead them to think that's acceptable.  Woof and I have had many conversations about this and she's made me realize that I'm, perhaps, overly concerned. 

The key to the scenario is the manner in which I would be told about their drinking.  I have always told them that I understand that people can make horrible mistakes, but what makes us who we are is how we handle those mistakes once we've made them.  So, I would hope that my child would call me and confess their inability to drive.  I've already told my older two that *if* that ever happened, I would be furious...but, I would not say a word until the next day.  Because of this, I hope they'd call and allow me to come pick them up.  If they drove around intoxicated and I found out afterward, then I'd confiscate their license and take the keys to their vehicle.  If they drove  intoxicated with someone else in the car, the above would apply PLUS I would call every one of those parents and tell them that their child got in a car with an intoxicated driver...because, clearly, that shows a lack of good judgment as well.  My child would lose so many privileges that they'd be better off Amish. 

If someone called to tell me they were drinking and had left the location, then I would call our car manufacturers 24 hour help line and ask them to use OnStar to locate the vehicle.  I would go looking for him/her with that info and demand that they pull over and come home with me.  I realize not everyone has OnStar or tracking devices.  I would then insist that they pull community service duty or meet with families whose lives have been irrevocably altered by a drunk driver.  This is a zero tolerance issue in my mind.  There's never, ever, ever a justifiable reason for getting in a car while you've been drinking (unless it's a taxi or there's a hook-armed man made with a chainsaw standing ten feet away).  Good topic for discussion.

possum: Teens in my side of the family are traditionally allowed wine or champagne with adults at home on special occassions. I'm speaking of  a controled and contained environment. Unfortunately, everyday teen life is not controled or contained. I cannot say that allowing a teen to imbibe will take away the mystery and novelty of alcoholic beverages and help equip him to make the right choices. I've learned as a parent to trust my intuition, which is not fool proof.

Our teen has a cell phone and she is expected to keep us informed of her whereabouts and to answer the phone if we call. So far this has worked out ok. Only one time has she called to say "I'm going to so-and-so's house with friends instead of coming home."  I said emphatically "no." (I knew there was a good chance so-and-so was home alone without adults.) She didn't like it, but came home. I later learned that the gathering led to teen mischief which got so-and-so in the doghouse. Was my kid testing the rules? Probably. 

Most of the above scenerios are the stuff that add gray hair to parents. Much of teens staying out of trouble have to do with instilling responsibility, trust, and the relationship a parent has with a child. Unfortunately, this does not mean a teen won't use poor judgement anyway.