TOTALLY GEEKED!

Good point.

This must be a regional thing because I've never heard of it

I wouldn't call anyone a "bad Parent", if they let their child go on a Spring Break trip.

I would just want to know the kids they were going with. And, if they would all stick together.

As far as leaving the country, like

Natalee Holloway was allowed to do. Gosh, that was so sad.

I'd bet her parents regret that decision. And will, till the day they die.

huskerbb wrote:

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Never heard of high school students going anywhere for spring break. Heck, I don't think they even really have a spring break here, certainly not a full week.

Kids in Nebraska are out for sports. They don't have time for such foolishness. Girls' state basketball was last week, boys is this week.

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Are there any teenagers in Nebraska who do NOT participate in organized sports? 

Blankie wrote:

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Fort Worth Mom wrote:

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Natalee Holloway?

Anyone?

Who saw that coming?

Not her parents, yet, they sent her on that trip.

Nope. Call me old fashioned. Not me. I wouldn't let my child go.

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That's a good example. And there are probably plenty more. Maybe not necessarily murder or disappearing, but bad things. Alcohol poisoning. Pregnancy. STDs. Rape.

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 Actually Blankie you WERE correct.  I just watched a news report on spring break in FL.  They DOUBLE the police force during spring break and it's still not enough.  They said alcohol flows so freely they don't even bother arresting kids for drinking.  The police are ordered NOT to get involved unless the violence turns deadly.  Police have lost their lives breaking up fights there.  They say the rape rates go through the roof.  They showed the beach one morning with condoms and alcohol containers strewn EVERYWHERE.  The police chief said one of their BIGGEST problems is drifters who come down for spring break with the intent to rob and rape.  There are teen deaths every year.  EVERY year.  Last year two teen boys challenged each other to jump off a balcony when they were drunk.  They jumped four floors and died.  There are stabbings.  The police can't even get into the dense crowds to get to the fight sometimes.  So the people lay there and bleed. 

No.  This is not where I would send my kids.  Once they are 18 there's not much you can do to stop them but I would hope I raised them better than to want to put themselves in this situation.  And you can say your, general you, child is all sweet and pure but that won't really matter if someone decides to rape her.  Or murder her.  Or stab her.  Even if your child stay sober the whole time things can happen when this stuff is going on and your child can get caught up in it.  Nope.  Not going.

lilyofcourse wrote:

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Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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Not sure why u would want to send your kids to a place with a lot of intoxicated people around but maybe you dont care what your kids are exposed too.

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What happened to "not my monkey..."?

I know what my kids are able to do. 

You know what your kids are able to do. 

IF you are not comfortable With it, then fine. 

If someone is, then fine. 

 

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   You are the one criticizing me for not wanting to do it.  So yeah.

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 No I am not. Are you reading the right posts?

I am agreeing with you.

If you don't feel your child, General you and your, is not ready to go,  if the parent feels they are not ready for a trip like this, then I agree. They shouldn't let them go. 

I am not the one trying to passively say a parent doesn't care about their kid if they let them go.

 

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 Please.  You are implying that her child is not trustworthy or mature because she doesn't want to send her to a crazy teen party scene with tons of drinking and sex.  Stupidest damn thing I've ever seen. 

Lawyerlady wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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Not sure why u would want to send your kids to a place with a lot of intoxicated people around but maybe you dont care what your kids are exposed too.

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What happened to "not my monkey..."?

I know what my kids are able to do. 

You know what your kids are able to do. 

IF you are not comfortable With it, then fine. 

If someone is, then fine. 

 

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   You are the one criticizing me for not wanting to do it.  So yeah.

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 No I am not. Are you reading the right posts?

I am agreeing with you.

If you don't feel your child, General you and your, is not ready to go,  if the parent feels they are not ready for a trip like this, then I agree. They shouldn't let them go. 

I am not the one trying to passively say a parent doesn't care about their kid if they let them go.

 

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 Please.  You are implying that her child is not trustworthy or mature because she doesn't want to send her to a crazy teen party scene with tons of drinking and sex.  Stupidest damn thing I've ever seen. 

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Exactly my point!  Yes, I trust my daughter so to put that out there as if that is even in question is ridiculous. 

Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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Not sure why u would want to send your kids to a place with a lot of intoxicated people around but maybe you dont care what your kids are exposed too.

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What happened to "not my monkey..."?

I know what my kids are able to do. 

You know what your kids are able to do. 

IF you are not comfortable With it, then fine. 

If someone is, then fine. 

 

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   You are the one criticizing me for not wanting to do it.  So yeah.

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 No I am not. Are you reading the right posts?

I am agreeing with you.

If you don't feel your child, General you and your, is not ready to go,  if the parent feels they are not ready for a trip like this, then I agree. They shouldn't let them go. 

I am not the one trying to passively say a parent doesn't care about their kid if they let them go.

 

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 Please.  You are implying that her child is not trustworthy or mature because she doesn't want to send her to a crazy teen party scene with tons of drinking and sex.  Stupidest damn thing I've ever seen. 

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Exactly my point!  Yes, I trust my daughter so to put that out there as if that is even in question is ridiculous. 

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 And it takes a special kind of low to insult people's children that they don't even know.

You're just making it worse...

flan

lilyofcourse wrote:

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If ya'll want to get all offended by my agreeing with you then fine. That is your privilege.

As for my being a Christian woman and my past, yes, I do think I have a good grasp on the whole thing. I know that kids can cause and get into just as much trouble at the neighbors pool party as they would any where else. To think that isn't possible is to hide your head in the sand.

I also know how I have raised my kids. I have a pretty good idea of how they will or would fare out on their own. And if I did my job right, an 18-19 year old should be able to go out of town for a week with their freinds.

Of course there are other things to consider. Where, money, who they are with. Of course all that is important.

I know not every kid that goes is not going to be partying like a frat boy.

A parent has to decide for their own child.

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 Neither is anyone disagreeing that kids can't into trouble in their own neighborhood.  Of course they can.  But, as parents, you don't purposefully PLACE your child in a situation that you believe could be harmful in some way.  You don't let your kid run back and forth across the highway to prove they know how to cross the street.  You keep saying the SAME thing over and over.    That doesn't mean the rest of us think our kids are going to go get stupid drunk and have an orgy.  Most of us trust our children.  But, no I am not going to put my daughter in an alcohol fueled environment.

No one I knew went on spring break. there were a few camping trips, but nothing major.

Ohfour wrote:

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Meh, It's really not that big a deal. What you see on TV is sensationalism.

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That's true too.  There is a lot of that.  However, that doesn't mean it is not happening though.  And, teens do often adopt a "mob" mentality when it comes to getting out of control. 

I agree that a lot of it is sensationalism. However, the stats don't lie. Rape, assault, and robbery doubles during spring break. Murders increase. I wouldn't want my kid around that.

And the police say one of the BIGGEST problems is that they have drifters who come in just for spring break to prey on the teens. They come from all over with the intent to rape and rob.

Ohfour wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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Ohfour wrote:

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Meh, It's really not that big a deal. What you see on TV is sensationalism.

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That's true too.  There is a lot of that.  However, that doesn't mean it is not happening though.  And, teens do often adopt a "mob" mentality when it comes to getting out of control. 

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 I'm not stupid.  I was a teenager.  I know what they do in large groups without parental supervision. 

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Yeah, I do too.  and what they show on TV is the extreme.  Been there, done that, let my kids experience it.   We all are functioning adults and so is everyone I know...

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I don't see experiencing Spring Break in Fla as some "need" or life passage.  So, not sure why you are so hysterical about having young girls go there?  I really think their will live full lives even if they never go to Spring Break.  Sheesh.   

Ohfour wrote:

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Nobody Just Nobody wrote:

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And the police say one of the BIGGEST problems is that they have drifters who come in just for spring break to prey on the teens. They come from all over with the intent to rape and rob.

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Whatever...they do that during Fan Fair too.  Any times there are a large group of people, that's going to happen... 

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 My high schooler isn't going to Fan Fair by herself, either. 

Lawyerlady wrote:

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Ohfour wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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Ohfour wrote:

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Meh, It's really not that big a deal. What you see on TV is sensationalism.

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That's true too.  There is a lot of that.  However, that doesn't mean it is not happening though.  And, teens do often adopt a "mob" mentality when it comes to getting out of control. 

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 I'm not stupid.  I was a teenager.  I know what they do in large groups without parental supervision. 

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Yeah, I do too.  and what they show on TV is the extreme.  Been there, done that, let my kids experience it.   We all are functioning adults and so is everyone I know...

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 Nobody (else) that I know was ever allowed to go to Spring Break in FL during high school - college, yes.  Not high school.  And college age is different, b/c college students have then been away from home taking care of themselves for over 6 months - there is a big maturity growth there.

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Well, there's the difference.  Here it is the norm.  It would seem strange to me that someone DIDN'T go... 

No, I'm just defending my decision to send my kids on Spring Break.

Ohfour wrote:

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No, I'm just defending my decision to send my kids on Spring Break.

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BTW, who are you "defending your decision" to?  I make the rules for my kids and I do what I think is right and I dont' have to "defend" it to anybody.  If others don't like how I parent, tough taters! 

Look. We all assess things a bit differently. Some parents won't let their kids walk home from school. Some do. Who is right? I don't know. Maybe both or maybe neither. You have to do what is your comfort level as a parent. We are all influenced differently by our own life experiences, the news and on and on.

Nobody Just Nobody wrote:

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I'm sure many kids go and come home just fine. Personally I wouldn't want my daughter to lose her virginity in this environment. Also, I wouldn't want to be the parent of the child who DIDN'T come back okay. Or who didn't come back at all.

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 And THAT, unfortunately, is a real possibility.

flan

From last Spring Break -

Rice University student Reny Jose, 21, disappeared after walking out of a beach house in Panama City, Fla., on Monday. Jose, who was in Florida over the weekend for Spring Break, was reported missing the following morning. Police found his clothing and cellphone in a garbage can near the rented house he had been sharing with friends.

Jose’s disappearance reflects a grim reality of Spring Break: as students flock to the beach during the annual break, the danger of abduction into human trafficking ratchets up.

In the United States, human sex trafficking is a growing epidemic. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, it is the fastest-growing organized crime business and the third-largest criminal enterprise in the world.

Human trafficking represents a $9.5 billion per year industry in the U.S, according to U.N. statistics. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center reports that there have been 9,298 unique cases of human trafficking in the past five years, with 41 percent of all American sex trafficking cases referencing U.S. citizens as victims. Only 15 percent of all those referenced as victims of sex trafficking were male.

While not every Spring Break disappearance is related to human trafficking, the reality that predators could be drawn to dense populations of partying youths should be taken into consideration. In 2009, for example, Brittanee Drexel of Rochester, N.Y., then 17 years old, disappeared while on Spring Break with her friends in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Drexel was last seen on surveillance video leaving a popular hotel.

“It feels like the first day she went missing. It’s been a long difficult road, but we’re still holding out hope Brittanee is still out there,” Dawn Drexel, Brittanee’s mother, told Carolina Live on the four-year anniversary of her disappearance. “I take it day by day. You know some days are more difficult than others.”

States such as South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas and Arizona find themselves to be ideal targeting grounds for human trafficking. “We’re kind of a perfect storm, too, with the agricultural community, the hospitality community, the tourism, the transients,” said Thomas Lares, director of the Greater Orlando Human Trafficking Task Force.

“It’s a real hot spot, too, whenever there is large conventions, sporting events, for traffickers to exploit victims,” he noted.

Recent expansions to the law have made combating sex trafficking easier. In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that persons arranging for or having sex with a child under the age of 18 who was trafficked, are to be considered human traffickers and punished accordingly. The cases in question — U.S. v. Jungers and U.S. v. Bonestroo — involved the arrests of two South Dakota men who were caught in a police sting when they responded to ads for an 11-year-old girl and 14-year-old twins, respectively.

While the district court overturned the convictions, the Court of Appeals ruled that anyone who “knowingly … recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, obtains or maintains [a child] by any means” can be charged and punished as a human trafficker. It also ruled that trafficking “readily includes the actions of a purchaser whose sole purpose is obtaining a child for sex.”

Ohfour wrote:

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so in the past 8 years, 2 kids have gone missing. More than that have gone missing from my general area in the past 3 months. This is a whole lot of hand wringing and pearl grabbing.

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 Those are not the only kids that have gone missing.  And "only", really?  I bet their parents don't think that.  And missing is not the only thing that can happen. 

 

As students across the country book trips for a week in a sunny destination far away from professors and exams, 2014 Michigan State University graduate Lucy Gradolph has a chilling warning for spring break revelers about how her own laissez-faire approach to safety changed her life forever.

Gradolph and other MSU students headed to the white sands and clear blue seas of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for spring break in 2014. On the final night, March 7, she wrote in a column published on WJBK-TV:

“I was kidnapped, raped, and almost killed. … It took one corrupt cab driver and his accomplice, to try to take my life away from me everlastingly.

“A simple, 30-second mistake, led me into a real life nightmare from hell. I was abducted by two men, raped, and threatened to be killed, limb-by-limb. No one knew where I was, no one knew what was happening to me, and worst of all, no one could save me, except myself.”

At one point, she said, a man in the back of a cab she had taken to return to her hotel room was assaulting her, while at the same time arguing with the cab driver in Spanish over whether to kill her.

Gradolph hopes magazines and universities will pick up her story in a warning to other unsuspecting women.

“Be aware that when you are on spring break, these people are preying on you in different ways than you think,” she said. “Don’t be alone, and actually know your plan.”

Girls Fight Back spring break safety tips featured recently on CNN include advice on handling dangers encountered while traveling to a spring break destination (whether domestic or foreign), in hotels, while using ATMs, while drinking, while playing in the sun and water, and during encounters with the opposite sex.

The Real Tragedy Of A Spring Break Death

By Mitch Albom

Published: 04/11/2010

Matt James fell off a balcony. He died. He was 17, four years under the legal drinking age. Police say he was drunk. This would be a tragic story if it were an isolated story.

It's more tragic because it is not.

James was not the first underage kid to die during spring break this year. He wasn't the first in Florida, nor was he the first in party-happy Panama City Beach. He wasn't even the first in Panama City Beach to fall five stories. Just two weeks earlier, a 19-year-old man from Georgia did the same thing. Fell off. Died. Alcohol, according to the guy's friends, was involved in that one, too.

James' story got more attention over the past week because he had been a top football recruit for Notre Dame, an offensive lineman hailed for his agility and towering presence. After his death, the Internet lit up with tributes and sad farewells. Matt James was mourned as a pied piper to small kids, a gentle giant.

No one spoke about how much alcohol it takes to intoxicate a 6-foot-8, 290-pound body. No one said how preposterous it is to argue with people next door by leaning over the balcony and shaking your finger - which James was reportedly doing when he fell.

No one asked how a 17-year-old, on a trip with 40 other kids and six adults, manages to drink enough to be in such a state - at 6:30 in the evening, not exactly the wee hours - with nobody stopping him.

In fact, when James' high school football coach was questioned by the media about the intoxication, he said, "I think you trivialize the situation if you start focusing on that. A young man, a 17-year-old young man, lost his life."

Yes. And alcohol may be the reason.

There is nothing trivial about that. No place for teenagers

If anything, alcohol is the real story here. Between March 11-28, police said they arrested 985 people in Panama City Beach for underage possession of alcohol. Read that again. Nine hundred eighty-five kids. And I call them kids, because when it comes to drinking, they are.

Which begs the question, especially with James, a 12th-grader: What was he doing down there? Since when did spring break become a high school thing? Since when is 40 kids with six adults - who, according to the football coach, weren't even there as official chaperones - a good ratio?

How much more evidence do you need that Florida, spring break and hotel rooms can be a dangerous combination? There is an awful history of people falling to their deaths from balconies in the Sunshine State. Sometimes they are jumping to another room to avoid crowded elevators. Sometimes they are diving into swimming pools. Sometimes they are taking foolish dares.

And sometimes they have no idea how precarious their posture is.

In any and all cases, it is no place to send your high school kid. I don't care how much they beg. I don't care how hard they work in school. And I really don't care how much they promise not to drink. Come on. We were all that age. Between the pressure from your friends, the ease of acquisition and the teenage ability to stay up longer and later than any adult chaperone, booze is always going to be a threat.

How do you avoid a threat?

How about staying away. Yes, kids will be kids

Now, of course, our prayers go out to James' family and friends. Losing a young, healthy man is always heartbreaking.

But dying in war is one thing. Dying on spring break is another. There is no kind way to say this. But you cannot, in good conscience, paint Matt James as a tragic hero. At best he is a victim of naïveté, thinking alcohol is just fine for a 17-year-old, and balconies are not dangerous places.

At worst, he is an example of the brazen fearlessness that young men exude, sometimes with deadly results. What, one imagines, could possibly have been so important to have an argument over across a balcony five stories high?

Probably something that would make you say, "Ahh, you know kids." And that's the point. If you know kids, you don't allow them in those situations. Then, hopefully, you don't have to mourn them later.