Last week I started to talk about how we actually talk to kids about postponing alcohol use, and waiting until their brains, bodies, and personalities are really ready to handle responsible drinking. Here's the an expanded version of the second part of my e-mail to the mom I was corresponding with.
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We don't talk about the legal issues for a variety of reasons. First, teens have a hypocrisy meter that will catch us too often. For example, I tend to drive the car too fast. The kids see that, and will turn it around if we talk about the idea that drinking is illegal. We run into it even with our own adult family members (aunts, uncles, and grandparents) who scoff at the legal issue. Also, if we behaved illegally ourselves in High School, the risk, no matter what we want to say, is looking hypocritical.
In our programs we focus on the health risks, and explain parental indiscretion related to having little to no science about this in the 70's and 80's. I sometimes talk about it with regard to my parents starting smoking before the Surgeon General's warning. My parents wouldn't let me smoke because they knew the risks. They let me drink because they didn't know the risks.
We talk about the risks of future addiction, we talk about the risks of not knowing how to be yourself, if you need alcohol to socialize. We talk about the fact that most kids going to college keep the social patterns they established in High School. We explain that knowing how to socialize without alcohol now, makes it easier to do that for the rest of their lives.
Another important point is that many kids actually do postpone using alcohol through high school. The problem is that no one arrives at school on Monday morning and says "Man, I stayed wickedly sober this weekend, and did I have a blast!!" The stories are about the drinking, and it begins to feel like drinking is the only option for a social life. Still, almost half of all high school students actually haven't been drinking in the last month (but when they do, it is rarely "responsibly.") We need to encourage our kids to explore exciting options that don't include alcohol and to seek out friends who are interested in those adventures.
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