| College freshman Max Bluestein has three roommates…
“One doesn’t drink at all, one drinks a little
bit and one drinks a lot,” he says.
And the one who drinks a lot is often coaxing him to skip
his studies, and go out.
“It’s a lot of peer pressure… just to go
out a lot,” explains Bluestein.
In fact, a Harvard researcher surveyed 13-hundred college
students… and found one thing above all others consistently
causes a student’s grades to drop… a roommate
who drinks.
“When somebody’s having fun you don’t want
to be sitting there reading and what not,” says freshman
Parham Savadkoohi.
“Your mind will be focused on drinking,” says
Sophomore Nikki Lee.
“And I know I have a paper due or something I might
go and hang out for a little while. It is kind of hard,”
says freshman Kristen Collier.
According to the study, on average, with a drinking roommate,
your child’s grades drop a quarter point. Surprisingly…
even after they’ve changed roommates… during the
second year, grades drop even more…almost a half point.
A pattern has been set.
“You know, drinking, partying, getting crazy,”
says Lee.
Experts say the problem of a drinking roommate needs to be
solved long before college. in high school, parents need to
allow kids just enough room to make small mistakes…
followed by consequences.
“And if they make other mistakes they get consequences,
and through the consequences they learn about decision and
then when they get off to college, they’ve had experience
at both decision making and consequences, and are perhaps
better able to handle these things on their own in college,”
explains Psychiatrist John Lochridge.
“I know what my priorities are, I’ll get my work
done though… it is hard,” says Collier.
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