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Dealing with Teenage Drinking
THE KEENE SENTINEL
June 21, 2010
Community Voices
There’s more to dealing with the problem of teenage drinking
“You aren’t her parents anymore, her parents are Axl Rose and Madonna, you can’t compete with that kind of bombardment.” (1994 movie “True Lies,” spoken by Tom Arnold to Arnold Schwarzenegger)
By Jeff Drake
As a person who has been working in the field of substance abuse prevention for 20 years as a psychotherapist, student assistance program counselor, state prevention specialist, director of youth services of a town, and a parent educator at Monadnock Family Services and the Monadnock Area Drug and Alcohol Abuse Coalition, I would like to add a consideration to your recent article on underage drinking in The Sentinel.
I want to start by saying “thanks” for tackling the very difficult subject of underage drinking and the problem that it poses for parents. It is important to bring it to our general attention and for that I am grateful. I also feel that your response to the problem was very honest and you didn’t sugarcoat the problem with any “politically correct” clichés that you didn’t feel were true about solving this problem.
However, your very funny line about parents having lost their influence that I quoted at the start is only true for some parents: the parents of children who are likely to be underage drinkers. You are correct that these children can come from families of any background, and be any type of teen. And yet there is a group of parents who actually remain the parents and do keep their children safe; how they do it important for us all to know.
Researchers surveyed parents of children who didn’t indulge in underage drinking or use illegal drugs and asked them why they didn’t. The universal answer was: “Because my parents would kill me!”
Now, when a teenager says that his or her parents would “kill me” they are not talking about a group of parents who control their children with a threat of murder. This is “teen speak” for my parent would be really seriously upset with me.
Two points are key here: One is that they specifically know that the behavior is one that their parents expect them not to do. The second is that they really care what their parents think of them. Their relationship with their parents is so close and important to these children and they do not want to risk wrecking it. This is the way that those parents who are “still the parents” of teenagers still have influence. And this is a group of parents that can be helped here in the Monadnock area.
How exactly do they achieve this ability to protect their children? They do two things.
The first is that they take the time to become very clear about what their expectations are regarding their children’s underage drinking (and other ‘risky behaviors’) and take the time to communicate those expectations so that their children fully understand them.
The second step is that they build a close and respectful bond between parent and child. They run their family in ways that keeps everyone feeling heard, helpful and appreciated. They work together for the good of the family, have fun together and feel safe talking over their problems and conflicts without losing control.
They take the time to have real discussions about the family’s policies, values and choices. These all build the closeness and mutual caring that the teenagers will not want to risk losing by going against their family policies about alcohol and other risky behaviors.
In your column, you brought it up and said so well that “Our first priority is to keep them safe. It’s a nasty conundrum.”
Please help parents with that “nasty conundrum” by learning about the solution that is available to solve it. Please urge those parents who struggle with worry, as you do, to step up and take these two steps in their families.
These steps can be harder than they might seem at first. MADAC, the Monadnock Area Drug Abuse Coalition, offers a fun and effective program for parents of kids ages 9 to 14 called Guiding Good Choices. It’s a nationally recognized and well proven program that will help any parent feel secure that they can create these two protective factors that work not only from underage drinking, but for the whole range of “risky behaviors” that teenagers are susceptible to.
This program has helped at Jonathan Daniels School and at Keene Middle School and the parents who attended expressed their wish for all parents to have a chance to benefit as they have from what it had to offer.
So there is help, it is here in this area now and it does solve the problem. This program can be offered at your school, your religious community, or community center. Parents, or anyone who wants to support our parents, may contact Judy Hoffman at Monadnock Family Services Parent Outreach Program (357-6372, extension 116) for information and help getting started.
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JEFF DRAKE, parent educator and guiding choices facilitator at Monadnock Family Services, wrote this reply to a May 10 column by Steve Gilbert about underage drinking.
Copyright © 2010 - The Keene Sentinel
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