High school commencements will soon mark a time of pomp and circumstance – and underage drinking. Aided and abetted by the very adults charged with their safety, teens too often confuse celebration with intoxication, leaving them at risk for the serious consequences associated with adolescents and alcohol.
Driving America’s enabling of underage drinking is a profound lack of awareness of its costs and the physical, social and emotional toll it takes on teens.
A recent report by the The National Research Council and Institute of Medicine notes a disturbing trend of adult procurement of alcohol for teens. Moreover, it points to the resulting $53 billion a year in losses from traffic deaths, violent crime and other destructive behavior.
Here are the facts about youth and alcohol:
It’s also a fact that young people use alcohol more frequently, and more heavily, than all other drugs combined. Research from Students Against Destructive Decisions and Liberty Mutual Group reveals that drinking increases significantly between the sixth and seventh grades; that the average age for teens to start drinking is 13 years old; and that by 12th grade, more than three in four teens are drinking.
Unfortunately, many young people fall prey to the myth of invincibility, believing that there are no real, or lasting, effects of alcohol use. They’re wrong.
In turn, many of their parents subscribe to the myth of inevitability, convinced that drinking is a rite of passage and that there’s not much they can do to influence their child’s choices. More than half of parents believe that drinking is part of growing up and teens will drink no matter what.
They’re wrong, too. More than a third of middle and high school students say they have not consumed alcohol. And parents who talk with their teens about underage drinking, set expectations and enforce consequences are significantly less likely to have children who drink.
Still, the house parties dotting the path home from graduation reveal a commonly held view among adults that allowing teens to drink in private homes will keep them safe. It won’t. Anyway, what gives the parent of one child the right to decide for the parent of another that such behavior is harmless and appropriate?
According to SADD’s research, an angry mother said, “I thought it was enough to make sure the parents would be home and supervising. It never occurred to me I had to ask if they were going to let the kids drink.”
But the undermining doesn’t stop there. Young people who would otherwise choose not to drink face a dilemma when adults make the offer. As one teen put it, “They don’t even give us a chance to make the right decisions.”
The legal and ethical ramifications of allowing or facilitating underage drinking are enormous – and fortunately not lost on a growing number of states beefing up prosecution of complicit adults. But not until all segments of our society – including the parents who make the rules and supervise the teens – speak with one, clear, unambiguous voice about the perils of underage drinking will we successfully shatter the myths of invincibility and inevitability that propel it.
The best way to honor teens at graduation is to help them safely celebrate their achievement. Hosting alcohol-free parties, clearly communicating expectations for personal behavior, and enforcing consequences for violating the rules are just a few good ways to start.
The graduates have done their work. Now it is time to do ours.
Stephen Wallace is national chairman and CEO of Students Against Destructive Decisions (www.sadd.org).
