Teens will listen to parents more than anybody else

Teenage years are already dif­fi­cult and teens are fac­ing more pres­sures than they have in past years. Teens are being pres­sured by par­ents and soci­ety to act more like adults and make adult– like deci­sions. In today’s econ­omy, some teens are being asked to be a sur­ro­gate par­ent to younger sib­lings while mom and dad take on extra work to make ends meet. Get­ting into col­lege is more com­pet­i­tive and teens are feel­ing the pres­sures to make a deci­sion about col­lege at younger ages.

Dur­ing the teen years, pres­sures to use and abuse alco­hol and other drugs are at their high­est. Sta­tis­tics from recent stud­ies show that 27 per­cent of teens mis­use some type of drug every month and teen alco­hol abuse remains one of the biggest prob­lems our youth face. Unfor­tu­nately, more and more teens die each year from alco­hol related poi­son­ing or drunk dri­ving crashes. In addi­tion to these haz­ards, alco­hol has been shown to stunt the devel­op­ment of sev­eral key inter­nal functions.

Many teens ques­tion why it is against the law to drink alco­hol when they are asked to join the mil­i­tary and vote on crit­i­cal issues that affect their com­mu­nity — and are now being asked to act even more like adults. Many believe that if they are asked to be an adult, they should be treated as an adult and should be able to con­sume alco­hol. Even some adults believe teen alco­hol con­sump­tion should be allowed and will com­pare sta­tis­tics in the United States to those in other coun­tries with lower legal drink­ing ages.

The United States does have one of the strictest drink­ing laws and also has one of the biggest prob­lems with teen alco­hol abuse. Most coun­tries with lower age restric­tions on alco­hol have fewer youth alco­hol abuse prob­lems. Stud­ies show, how­ever, that par­ents in coun­tries with lower restric­tions talk to their kids more about the harm­ful effects of alco­hol. These same stud­ies have shown that par­ents in the United States believe two of the most impor­tant issues teens face are sex and alco­hol abuse, and that edu­cat­ing their teens about these issues should be left up to schools.

Schools should be pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion on the harm­ful effects of alco­hol but it has been proven time and again that teens will lis­ten to their par­ents more than any­body else. Talk to your teens about the harm­ful effects of alco­hol abuse and encour­age them to share what they learn in school, and help keep our kids safe.

Keep­ing Our Kids Safe is brought to by the Delaware Police Depart­ment and School Resource Offi­cer Rod Glazer.

Posted by Rod Glazer on Dec 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.