In early June, thousands of Montgomery County students will don their beach gear and head towards the shore. Popular destinations include Bethany Beach, Rehoboth and Ocean City. The annual tradition often has parents worrying about their children and any potential dangers they could face. It’s no secret that alcohol and drugs pop up throughout many beach week trips. Parents are haunted by the headlines “exposing” beach week. However, beach week is not nearly as horrible as parents believe it to be.

Beach week is the precursor to adulthood. Whether you are heading to college in the fall or not, beach week is a learning experience about the next chapter in your life. If your parents can’t trust you alone for one week, how are they supposed to let you move on? In college (and life) we are going to have to make decisions and spoiler alert – not every single one is going to be smart. Now I’m not telling any adult how to parent their children, but it is a memorable experience. Beach week teaches independence, especially if the kids have the major hand in planning. Budgeting, grocery shopping and cleaning schedules are all part of living with other people that a lot of seniors at our school haven’t experienced yet. Living on our own is a peek into what the future might be like.

While parents seem to dread beach week, I think it can be a good learning lesson. We need to have our own responsibilities and make our own choices. They aren’t all going to be perfect, but that’s what being a teenager is about – learning. Parents also doubt us. We can make good decisions and we often make more good ones than we do bad ones. So parents, listen up, we will be fine, just trust in us. We can do it and a lot of us are going to do it in the fall. So don’t stress, we got it.