Key Concepts

"I'm Bored"

  As kids get older there are fewer camp opportunities for them.  When they don't need daycare, and can stay home without round the clock coverage, many parents stop booking their summers wall-to-wall. Summers seemed tailor made for teens to catch up on their sleep.  But it leaves plenty of time for having "Nothing to do!"

A few years ago a good friend put together a refrigerator list for "When I'm Bored."  I adapted her list to my kids.  It changes every summer with different ideas.  It might be a good brainstorming exercise to do with your kids.  As they develop a list, they might find ways to keep themselves busy so they don't have to approach the list.  Here's our list -- adapt liberally.

Download "When I'm Bored"

College Kids @ Home

 A friend of mine called recently to mention a topic.  Her neighborhood is full of college kids returning for the summer.  She says that lots of them are drinking and doing it in the open with their parents.  

"They're saying, 'look we'll drink in the basement or we'll drink somewhere else!'" she tells me.  "Why," she asks "do they feel like they have to drink?"

Good question!  Some college kids drink when they hangout.  They do this, kids suggest, because it's what they do at college.  That's not the whole story.  Many college-aged kids don't drink, or don't drink often.  Many kids do it because they don't know what else to do.

There is also the risk of self-medication. It is not uncommon for teens and young adults to use alcohol to address depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues they face. (More on this in a couple of weeks.)

At the very least, it seems to me, that parents may want to talk to their college students about the topic.  Do parents have concerns about their kids' still developing brains?  Do parents want to make sure that drinking is not the default activity when these developing adults are bored?  Talk to kids about their perceived "limits" when they drink. College students often underestimate how much they drink, and how much is too much. Susie Bruce at the University of Virginia teaches parents of incoming freshmen that the developing young adult responds differently to alcohol than older adults in the following ways:   

 

 

• More sensitive to memory impairment
•  Easier to drink to brain impairment without realizing it.
• Faster development of tolerance
• Less sensitive to sedative effects 
• May be more vulnerable to long-term damage *

One last thing.  Parents should always keep in mind that they are still legally at risk if their kids' friends are drinking underage as guests in their homes.

 

*Source: H Scott Swartzwelder, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University.  Research supported by NIAAA and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071304399.html?hpid=sec-education 

Summer Chores: Getting things Done

 Teens like to have a purpose.  They also like to see the purpose in what they do.  Oh, and a lot of them like to take the summer OFF. It can create a dynamic tension.  Just remember, family chores are a great way to help teens find purpose and connection in a family.

There are smart ways to do this, and dumb ways to do this.  Often when we are tired or distracted we head down paths when we should know better.  One approach that almost never works is the traditional parent "because I said so!" position. And then there are the times when their resistance can make it easier to just do it ourselves.  Neither approach is helpful to our kids or our family.

Don't do what I did recently.  I got myself in a bind when I asked my son to help clean the kitchen.  He came up willingly and then asked what I wanted him to do.  I channelled most of the adults I know by saying "I want you to look around figure out what to do."  

"Mom," he said with exasperation in his voice, "why can't you just tell me what to do?"

I matched his exasperation with my own response and you probably know how it goes:  "Why can't you just look at what needs to be done?"  and it went steadily downhill from there.

Here's the thing.  Teens can't necessarily see what needs to be done.  Their brains don't work that way. Many boys, but not only boys, often need tasks to be chunked.  Checklists work for them, as does working side-by-side until the task is done.

Still there are lots of things to do to keep chores from getting exasperating.  We need to think things through if we want it to go smoothly.  Remember, we have the experience and expectations.  Here are some helpful hints from FamilyGoesStrong.com.  The Partnership for Children, Youth, and Families offers a few different ideas on their YouTube Channel.  Do you have others you would share?  Would you share a battle that resolved itself well?

In the meantime, stay cool and find good connections with your family!  

Good News -- Two Benefits

A couple of interesting articles about teenagers this week.

 First -- Teens and Sleep

Nurture Shock talks about it, Dr. Stixrud talks about it.  More and more neuropsychologists and other professionals are talking about the importance of SLEEP on the teenager's developing brain.  Check out this article in today's Washington Post. More evidence that teens brains don't work like grown-ups.

Arlington County, VA was one of the first school systems in the country to change their High School start time 10 years ago.  It just makes sense.  For more info on teens and sleep check out this information from the National Sleep Foundation.

Second --  Girls and Sports

Take a look at this short article talking about the long term benefits for teenage girls who are physically active.  Good news!

Parenting That Works

 For a long time in my classes I have been talking about the successes related to authoritative parenting.  Authoritative parents, according to respected researcher Diana Baumrind, combine high warmth and high engagement/accountability to stay connected to their teens.  

Baumrind's research shows that kids who grow up in homes with authoritative parents are much more likely to succeed personally, professionally, and academically.  Having either warmth or engagement without the other is not enough balance for kids.  They need both.  A new study from BYU finds this related to teens and heavy drinking.  While teens may experiment with alcohol, teens with warm, engaged parents are much less likely to experiment with or participate in heavy drinking.  Check it out!  Click Here.

For more discussion on the parenting styles that work, check out this earlier discussion.

This Makes Sense to Me

There are other opinions in this discussion that you can check out, but this one makes the most sense to me.

From the NY Times discussion of social hosting laws

The Myth of How Europeans Drink



David Jernigan is an associate professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society and director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has worked for the World Health Organization and the World Bank as an expert adviser on alcohol policies.

According to the Surgeon General, there are 5,000 deaths per year in the U.S. among young people under 21 as a result of alcohol use. No parent wants their child to have an alcohol problem, be involved in an alcohol-related crash or sexual assault, fall off a balcony during spring break, or suffer from alcohol poisoning.

 

 

Young people who start drinking before age 15 are five times more likely to develop alcohol problems.

 

Yet parents are strikingly ignorant of what the research literature suggests will be effective in keeping our children out of trouble with alcohol.

Many parents feel that young people will be safer if we keep them at home and supervise their drinking, or teach them to drink by having them drink with us. They shore up this conviction with a mental image of drinking patterns in European countries, where they assume that younger drinking ages and drinking with parents decreases youth drinking problems.

 

Close

 

In fact, the most recent research suggests that the opposite is true. Researchers followed 428 families in the Netherlands over a three-year period, and found that young people whose parents permitted drinking at home were more likely to drink more, to drink out of the home, and to develop alcohol problems over time.

A recent study of 1,388 young people and their parents in Chicago followed the children from ages 12 to 14, and found that those who reported at age 12 receiving alcohol from their parents at home were significantly more likely by age 14 to have been drunk or to have had five or more drinks at a time in the past two weeks.

Young people who start drinking before age 15 are five times more likely to develop alcohol problems. Keeping alcohol away from young people seems to have a clear result: it delays initiation of alcohol use.

This is what the comparison with Europe really shows: countries with higher drinking ages (like the U.S., Sweden, Norway and Iceland) have much lower prevalence of drinking in adolescence (measured in surveys of 15-16 year-olds that are comparable across countries) than countries with lower drinking ages. The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2007 Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking reported that in nearly all the European countries surveyed, young people engaged in binge drinking more often than in the U.S.

If providing alcohol to our children in the home is not the answer, what can parents do?

First, we need to look at our own drinking behavior, because children imitate the alcohol consumption of their parents. Second, we should support 21 as a sensible drinking age, given what we have learned from our national history and about adolescent brain development.

Third, we need to stay actively engaged with our children about alcohol use at least through the freshman year in college — research has shown both that the young people who were drinking in high school are the most likely to have alcohol problems in college, and that parental engagement is critical in helping young people make the transition from high school to college without getting into trouble with alcohol.

Today, alcohol companies spend at least $4 billion per year on marketing, much of it placed where young people are far more likely to see it than their parents. New products are more attractive to youth and more dangerous: “alcopops” are most popular with the youngest drinkers, and alcoholic energy drinks, which pre-mix alcohol with caffeine and other stimulants, create a high-risk population of wide-awake drunks.

The failure of alcohol taxes to keep up with inflation has made alcohol much more accessible to kids because it is now often cheaper than juice, soda or milk. Parents need to remember that today’s young people live in a far different world than they did, and protect them accordingly.

The Power of Talk

Kids whose parents take a clear and unambiguous position against drinking and drugs are less likely to use alcohol and drugs in high school.  They also are less likely to binge drink or abuse alcohol in their 20s.

Why not talk about drinking with your kids?  Regularly.

 Check out this NPR piece (with transcript.)  It discusses the latest research from brain researchers and parenting experts.

One more thing.

As school winds down, prom and graduation are key times that teens expect that they will be drinking and/or riding with drunk drivers.  In a national survey 90% of teens said that their peers are more likely to drink and drive on prom night, and 79% agreed that this was true for graduation night.

Talk to your kids, and let them know what you expect from them.  Remind them that they want these celebrations to be nights to remember.  This works better when alcohol and drugs are not involved.

Wish I had thought of this one

Be The Wall!!  A great idea for parents.  

Ron Taffel says that when kids push against us, they aren't asking us to get out of the way -- they're trying to find out if we are there.  They want to know that we are in the way between them and the things that are scary and dangerous.  

 This website from a Florida substance abuse prevention group is great.  It has so much in place to help us figure out what our kids need.  There's even a parent blog for people to share their ideas.

Check out Be The Wall and then share it with five friends you know would appreciate the support.  If you think it's good, ask them to share with five friends.  You know how it goes  . . .

Matthew James

Seventeen year old Matthew James had recently signed to play football at Notre Dame next year.  He and 40 of his teammates/classmates went to Florida for Spring Break.  By 6 p.m. he was "drunk and belligerent."  By 6:45 he was dead.  He fell from a 5th floor balcony while fooling around with his friends.

 He wasn't drinking and driving.  He was being a teenager and he complicated it by being drunk.   His family is in mourning, his school is in mourning, and the rest of the country is saddened by this tragedy. 

The Chicago Tribune is talking about this.  

There are many more risks when teenagers drink than we can imagine.  It's not enough to warn kids not to drink and drive, or make sure that you take the keys at a party.  Twelve teens per day die of alcohol related causes.  Girls and boys are sexually vulnerable when they've been drinking.

Many think that teen drinking is a rite of passage, and we can't do anything to stop it.

I'm curious what you think.  Was this preventable?  Take a minute to share your thoughts by clicking on the link of this post.  Let's get a conversation going.

Listen to the Experts

There has been lots of talk over the last couple of years about how the teenager's brain is different than ours.  When you get the chance, listen to this Koho Nnamdi WMAU radio program discussing the teen brain. Dr Jay Giedd is one of the leading researchers and, dare we say, explainers of the teenage brain.  The things these folks have to say will make a lot of sense if you know and love a teenager.

Just click the link and then press listen!!  What do you think?