Newsweek has a nationwide take on the issue we've been talking about in Indiana in the wake of the Jack Trudeau hosting-drinking-parties-for-the-kids dilemma:
But most researchers who study teen substance abuse say that for every family like the Hedricks, there are many more where allowing alcohol causes problems. "The data is quite clear about teen drinking and it has nothing to do with being puritanical," says William Damon, director of the Stanford University Center on Adolescence. "The earlier a kid starts drinking, the more likely they are to have problems with alcohol in their life." The antidrinking message is especially critical in families with a history of alcoholism, which greatly increases the risk.
Even if they don't become alcoholics, teens who drink too much may suffer impaired memory and other learning problems, says Aaron White of Duke University Medical Center, who studies adolescent alcohol use. He says parents should think twice about offering alcohol to teens because their brains are still developing and are more susceptible to damage than adult brains. "If you're going to do that, I suggest you teach them to roll joints, too," he says, "because the science is clear that alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana."
Adults and children have different roles, whether the issue is alcohol or other drugs, sex or what hour curfew should be. It is the child's job to test the rules, the adult's job to set them. There will always be some kids who obey the rules, however strict they might be, and those who break them no matter how lenient they are. But the great majority of kids are in the middle -- they will push at the limits to see what they can get away with. How hard they push and how far they go depends on where the line is set and how seriously it is enforced.
Adults who say, over any of the issues kids push the limits on, "Well, they're doing it anyway -- let's just make sure they are safe doing it," are remembering their own childhoods too much and failing to realize their roles have changed, thus guaranteeing that their kids will push the limits to the maximum and, perhaps, worst of all, come to think there are no limits.
Comments
How does this jive with the European approach to drinking? As I understand it, and I could well be wrong about my basic premise here, Europeans tend to introduce their children to alcohol earlier and ultimately have less problems with alcoholism. I think European kids are more likely to see adults drinking in a casual, restrained manner and less likely to view alcohol as a forbidden fruit.
Check this out: http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_policy/french_drinking.htm
From the article:
"The French drink one-and-a-half times more per capita than Americans and their death rate from liver cirrhosis is more than one-and-a-half times greater than that in the United States. According to WHO, France has the sixth highest adult per capita alcohol consumption in the world. (The U.S. ranks 32nd.) Alcohol may be involved in nearly half of the deaths from road accidents, half of all homicides, and one-quarter of suicides, according to the French equivalent of the U.S. Institutes of Health. And while coro
Chalk one up for "wrong about my basic premise." I wonder how I came upon the impression that Europeans handled alcohol more responsibly than Americans.
Doug, I think that's a common perception. It certainly was mine, too. Who'd a thunk it?
Would that be the Marin Institute that:
-Aggressively promotes neo-prohibition alcohol policies.
-Ignores repeated FTC investigations that have all concluded that alcohol producers do not target underage persons in their ads and marketing. That continues to insist, in spite of the evidence, that such targeting is widespread.
-Insists on using the highly deceptive term "binge" to refer to alcohol consumption that may not be high enough to cause any level of intoxication.
-Promotes the temperance-oriented "A Matter of Degree" program, whose own supporters have reported it to be ineffective in reducing alcohol problems.
-Promotes alcohol beverage bans.
-Promotes the false belief that alcohol problems are increasing in the U.S., although they are actually decreasing.
-Crusades against First Amendment constitutional free speech rights.
Don't suppose they might have an agenda to promote?