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Don't Give Teens Alcohol -- Period!
By Barbara Cooke
It comes as a shock to many parents that there are parents who feel they can be "buddies" with their teens if they let them drink. George Lesmes, an Evanston, Ill. resident and father of four teenagers, was amazed to discover that some parents serve kids alcohol. "Alcohol for teens is zero tolerance in our house," he says. "It's totally inappropriate. And our kids all know that they do not have our permission to drink at anyone's house."
"It's pretty pathetic if parents rely on their teen's definition of fun," says Leslie Cornis, a database account manager from Chicago, Ill. "Of course I liked to drink in high school and thought is was really cool when certain parents let us drink at their house." But now, at age 28, an older and wiser Cornis says, "I knew back then it was wrong. When I have kids, I won't appreciate it when other parents serve alcohol."
Your teen may whine, "You're the ONLY parent who won't let their kids drink when they're seniors." But the Princeton, New Jersey-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation commissioned a study in 1998 and found that 96 percent of Americans view underage drinking as a significant problem and support measures that would reduce teen drinking. The study also showed that 83 percent of respondents favored punishment of adult providers.
Debby Hutter, a Wilmette, Ill. mother of four adolescents, says, "I feel like I would be ostracized if I said my daughters couldn't go to a prom or graduation party because there was drinking going on. My daughters say to me, 'Mom, you just don't get it.' But I don't get how parents -- even if they take away the car keys -- can justify serving 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds beer. Kids make bad choices, but what can you do when parents facilitate those choices?"
Parent-sponsored drinkfests make it harder for the kids who don't drik and parents who wont let their kids drink, says Kendrick. "It's almost an inherent challenge that these parents lay down by saying, 'I'm sponsoring this because I think your teen is mature enough to drink responsibly.' A teen who doesn't drink or whose parents say it's wrong thinks, 'What's wrong with me? Am I the only one who feels this way?' But there is a huge difference between kids experimenting with alcohol and kids drinking with adult approval."
