Drowning In Confusion Teens Receive Mixed Messages From Adults On Consumption Of Alcohol

Madge and her husband rushed home from a weekend away when calls to reach their 15-year-old daughter were unsuccessful.

She was supposed to be staying at a friend’s house while the couple was away.

But she wasn’t there.

Home is where they found their teenage daughter, cleaning up the house from a party that had included about a dozen other teenagers from their quiet, suburban Detroit neighborhood.

Four to five cases of empty beer cans were stacked neatly in the dining room, ready to be taken back for the deposit.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” says Madge, who requested anonymity to protect her daughter’s privacy. “I had no reason not to trust them.”

Her daughter admitted to drinking a few beers and told her parents of a liquor store where kids regularly order booze and get delivery.

Madge reported the store to the police.

What to do about her teenager and drinking was another matter altogether.

Madge wasn’t sure what to do.

Neither are a lot of other parents.

And during the holidays a time when some parents lighten up their no-alcohol stance it’s important that parents remember that the rules they set, the bonds they develop with their children and the behavior they model will go a long way toward preventing their children from making possibly deadly mistakes with alcohol.

“Parents must give a strong no-use message,” says Karolyn Nunnallee, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “We’re not helping our children by being flexible on the drinking question.”

But even prevention experts and researchers fear that the message isn’t getting through to enough children and young adults. And there is one controversial school of thought that advocates teaching college-age youths how to drink responsibly.

More than 80 percent of youths have tried alcohol by the time they graduate from high school.

“There really is no magic bullet,” says University of Michigan research scientist John Schulenberg, who has studied the parents’ role in children’s drinking habits.

But there are things parents should know and can do.

First, what you do will speak louder than what you say.

“It’s what we model to kids that’s really key,” says Betty Conger, who teaches a seminar called Talking With Your Kids About Alcohol, called TWYKAA (pronounced TWICK-ah) to parents throughout metro Detroit.

“If we tell kids that alcohol is not necessary to have a good time, yet every time we plan a good time for adults we serve alcohol, what are we really telling them?”

Most prevention experts believe there is no sure way parents can teach their children to drink responsibly.

“I know parents who say, ‘It’s better to allow them to drink a little at home than to go out drinking and get into trouble,’ ” says Nancy Dloski, a Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., mom enrolled in TWYKAA.

“That’s a big mistake and it’s a common mistake,” says Jeff Jay, director of program development at Brighton Hospital, which runs both inpatient and outpatient programs for youths who abuse alcohol and other drugs.

It’s wrong for several reasons, he says. “It sends a mixed message. “You’re saying, ‘Yes, it’s against the law, but don’t worry as long as you’re doing it with me or the way I prescribe it.’ It sets up a whole lot of future problems.

“Once you go down that road, how can you get upset later when they’re driving around with a bottle of Colt 45 or driving past the speed limit? You’ve already told them the law isn’t that important,” Jay says.

Though some parents might loosen up during holidays, there is no good time to relax the rules on kids and drinking, experts say.

“For a kid, there’s no increase in Christmas cheer by letting them have a drink,” Jay says.

“Besides, doing so elevates the status of the drug. It holds it out as something of tremendous value that they can only have for special occasions.”

“The key is speaking clearly to your kids about alcohol,” he says. “Tell them: No. 1, it is a drug; No. 2, it’s illegal until you’re 21, and No. 3, the likelihood of getting into some kind of trouble with it is high until you’re an adult.”

An ongoing study at the University of Michigan supports that message.

It finds that children who came from homes where supervised drinking was allowed were more likely to do unsupervised drinking later on, says Schulenberg.

Researchers also suggest parents monitor their kids’ behavior, knowing where they are and whom they’re with, and have clear consequences that are followed when rules are broken.

Looking back on the teenage party at her home several months ago, Madge says she fell short on the monitoring end. She didn’t talk with the parents at the home where her daughter had planned to spend the night.

After she discovered the party, she grounded her daughter for three weeks, forbidding her to go anywhere except to school and school events.

If she and her husband have to be out of town now, an adult relative stays at the house with her daughter. And Madge enrolled in a program to help her talk with her daughter about the dangers of teenage drinking.

It’s important for parents to get to know the parents of their children’s friends, just as many parents do when their children are younger.

“You can’t assume that all parents have the same values as you have,” says Dloski.

Madge agrees. “Parents have to band together,” she says. “We need to stand together to protect our children.”