It seems that some parents, thinking they are acting with the best of intentions, supervise the children’s alcohol believing they are encouraging moderation. However, they fail to realise that evidence now shows that children who drink alcohol at an early age are more likely to become part of the adolescent party culture in which alcohol is regularly used.
Studies now show that a parent’s willingness to supply alcohol increases the likelihood that their adolescents will binge drink the same beverage. In addition there is no evidence that teens increase the amount they drink when parents are not willing to supply them.
The reality is if a parent expects their child to drink they will. I have often heard parents say, “My 16-year- old daughter or son was invited to a party — I didn’t know what to do so I went out and bought a six pack of beer or a four pack of alcopops.”
I think that the paradoxical nature of the whole thing is that during the teenage years the teenagers find the parents ‘cool’ who let them do anything and provide the alcohol or who facilitate the environment to make it happen.
These ‘cool’ parents provide the ‘home away from home’ for other teenagers — the double beds, the key to the door, who ‘responsibly’ won’t let them drink and drive (often because they have come close to hand with the death and destruction this can bring) who will provide alcohol to their and other children and who will laugh about cleaning up the vomit and the stinking rooms that result. However I have found that as young people move from teen to adult years that they have often lost respect for these parents. It may be that a habit or addiction that started in that environment has got a grip and is now hard to break, as is the depression that can result. Or it maybe that early sexual experiences occurring in the drug and alcohol hazes of these environments now haunt and wreak havoc emotionally, on maybe there are STDS that are causing pain and the possibility of infertility.
I like to encourage parents to learn to “stand up on the inside”, to remember that they are the adults who have the wider view and the bigger picture. If parents continue to persevere and work on a warm, loving, affirming relationship with their teenagers, it will pay off in the long run. They are not going to say at 14 “gee thanks Mum and Dad for keeping me home from a party” but they will appreciate you when they are in their late teens and early 20s.
And remember, there is no standard or perfect recipe. A child’s temperament is neither good nor bad — children and parents both contribute to the relationship. And if parents want some good encouragement and reinforcement there are some excellent strategies and programmes that can assist in good parenting styles through organisations such as Focus on the Family and their How to Drug Proof Your Kids programme, and Parents Inc which provide seminars, Family Coaching, Parenting workshops and Attitude and Tool Box programmes.
