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.
