Raising the drinking age to 21: Is it likely to ever happen?

While I was overseas on business last week an Australian study was published that apparently received a great deal of media attention. Researchers from UNSW followed young people from 13 to 30 and found that "early patterns of drinking are not limited to adolescence but rather persist into adulthood and are associated with a range of alcohol-related problems." This study provides one more important piece of the puzzle when it comes to helping parents make decisions around their child and alcohol. We've long known the dangers associated with 'binge drinking' (drinking to get drunk) and parents are now far more aware of the importance of delaying their child's first drink of alcohol for as long as possible (i.e., delay, delay, delay), but this research has found that how often a teen drinks is also a predictor of possible future problems.

No longer can a parent say "Well, he only has a couple of beers when he goes to a party on a Saturday night. He never gets drunk" believing that this could be promoting long-term 'responsible drinking'. If a teen is drinking every weekend, even a small amount, that could be just as problematic as going out once in a while and getting smashed when it comes to later-life problem drinking. Put simply, alcohol and teens don't go together no matter how you look at it!

As I said, I was overseas when this research hit the media but I did hear that it got quite a run and questions were raised about what could be done about limiting the harm associated with alcohol as far as young people are concerned. Not surprisingly, the issue of raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 was once again brought up as a possible solution and, according to some people who have contacted me since, it became the issue of the day across breakfast television, radio talkback programs and social media. Researchers and public health advocates are asked to comment on the topic and discuss the evidence around delaying alcohol consumption and the subsequent response from Mr and Mrs Normal from the suburbs is usually varied - some horrified by the thought (usually harping on about the 'nanny state' and the like) and others keen for governments to make the change. These polarised views are what breakfast television and radio love ... but when it really comes down to it, is a change to the legal drinking age ever going to really happen?

My answer is always the same - absolutely not! So if it's never going to happen, why do we continue to waste our time even talking about it?

Let's make something perfectly clear here, if we actually looked at the evidence there is no way that we would allow anyone to drink until at least 21, and for young men it would most probably be 25 years of age before we considered drinking alcohol to be low risk. This is due to the increasing evidence we now have around alcohol and the developing brain. The interesting thing is that at a time when we know more about the harms and that we should definitely delay drinking for as long as possible, many parents are actually introducing their children to alcohol at a younger and younger age.

This is essentially why the drinking age argument keeps popping up - it keeps the issue of underage drinking in the public consciousness and highlights the risks associated with adolescent drinking

Why then do I think we'll never see the legal drinking age rise? Well, firstly and most importantly, most people simply don't support the idea (according to the latest NDSHS report the number of Australians supporting 'raising the legal drinking age' actually decreased from 48% to 42%). Not only do most Australians not support the idea, but growing numbers do not regard it as a viable option. Parents may be outraged at seeing young teens drinking but for many of them, when it comes to their own children, they don't necessarily want them to drink but often see it as 'just something all teens do'. The old – "I did it, there's nothing wrong with me!" mentality. Many Australian parents had their first drink before they were 'legal' and most do not believe that drinking at that time caused them great harm. If you can't get parental support for a legal drinking age of 18, how in heavens do you hope to get community support for 21? I just don't think it will ever happen unless we see a major shift in community attitudes and that's not going to happen anytime soon!

Secondly, we have to remember why the drinking age was lowered to 18 in the first place. Although some Australian jurisdictions already had 18 years as the legal drinking age during the Vietnam War, there were other states that had different laws around alcohol. This meant that some young Australians who died for their country during that war were actually unable to drink alcohol, a fact that many found unacceptable (a situation that the US is now attempting to deal with) and the law was subsequently changed.

The debate around raising the legal drinking age will continue (politicians love throwing a media release out about the topic when they want to divert attention away from something else that they don't want to talk about - they do the same when they let slip something about legalizing cannabis or the like!). Certainly we need to keep talking about the risks associated with adolescent drinking and there have been a couple of amazing pieces of Australian research released this year that have provided valuable information helping parents to make far more informed decisions when it comes to their teen and alcohol. We need to be careful, however, that we tread carefully ... Claims of 'wowserism' and the 'nanny state' are getting louder and louder. Even though we are seeing decreasing support for measures such as raising the legal drinking age, I still believe we have the bulk of the community on our side at the moment, push too hard though and we'll lose them!   

Read More »

'Mum, I can't lie – I did have a couple of sips at the party …": When does 'honesty' become 'manipulation'?

During the week I met a Mum and Dad who asked my advice on how they should deal with their 15-year-old son who had been honest about drinking alcohol at a party. Their question went something like this …

We have made our rules about underage drinking pretty clear and our son knows that we do not want him to drink alcohol at this time in his life. He has been going to parties more frequently this year and we have always trusted him to do the 'right thing' - he is a great kid! A couple of weeks ago after we picked him up from one of these parties he turned around and told us that he wanted to be honest with us and said that he had had a couple of sips of one of his friend's beers during the night. Whether or not he had more than that we don't know - he certainly didn't appear to be intoxicated on the night. We then found ourselves in a really difficult situation - he had broken one of our basic rules about parties, i.e., he was not to drink alcohol. On the other hand, we were proud of him for making the decision to be honest about what he had done. We're both concerned that if we punish him for telling us that he broke the rules (because that's what we would be doing, as we would never have known that he had the few sips he said he had), do we run the risk of stopping him from being honest again in the future, i.e., would he start drinking behind our backs? It seems like we're asking a lot but we want him to continue to be honest but also not break our rules. What should we do?

As I said to the parents at the time, I've had this question (or at least a version of it) asked many times before … Now, only you know your teen and where he or she is at in terms of development and only you know the type of relationship you have with them, but from where I'm sitting, this type of 'honesty' is classic manipulation.

You've really got to ask yourself why would a young person ever make a decision to divulge this type of information? As the parents said, they would never have known that their son had drunk alcohol that night, so why would he have told them what had gone down? Without a doubt there would be some young people who are intrinsically honest and would find it extremely difficult to break a family rule and 'live with the lie', but when it comes to 15-year-old young men and women I can't imagine that's what this is likely to be about …

Think about it, this young man wants to drink alcohol at parties (because as his Mum told me, he believes 'everyone else does') - he's asked his parents and they have made it clear they are not going to support that. To 'test the waters' he drinks a little bit and then owns up to what he has done. He makes it clear that he doesn't want to lie to them, and as a result, he almost guarantees avoiding getting into trouble for breaking one of his family's fundamental rules around parties. If he successfully gets away with this, he has learned that as long as he admits to breaking the rules (i.e., he is 'honest' about what he does), there is a good chance that he will be able to do it again and again - each time pushing the boundaries just a little further … Now it is true that his thought processes may not be as calculating as this, but I can almost guarantee that at some point when he asks for his parents to give him alcohol to take to a party and they refuse (the point where many parents will draw the line and say that's not happening), then he will fire back with something like "Well, if you don't give it to me, I'll get it from somewhere else and go and drink in a park!" (moving from apparent honesty to a threat) …

I know that many people will not agree with me here and that I appear overly cynical (and even quite jaded!) but I have met too many parents over the years who have fallen for this line and then come to regret their decision down the line.

Only you can make a decision about how to deal with a situation like this but I would advise that you tread very carefully when it comes to rewarding honesty over that of applying consequences for breaking rules, particularly in relation to drinking and parties. I don't know what it is about alcohol but it is really quite a 'blindspot' for many parents. I'm not too sure whether it is because it is their drug of choice or what but for some reason alcohol is not always dealt with in the same way other teen issues are … I know these are fairly extreme examples but consider this … If your daughter came back from a shopping centre and declared that she couldn't lie to you and that she had actually been shoplifting and had stolen a couple of small items from a store, I'm sure you wouldn't be proud of her for being honest with you! If your son all of a sudden decided he needed to tell you the truth about his cyberbullying behaviour, once again you would deal with what went down, not be thrilled that he had shared details of his 'crime'! If they are telling you what they did it is usually because they fear that they may get found out, what other reason would there be for a confession? Of course, there may be some young people who simply get an attack of the 'guilts' and want to own up to bad behaviour or some kind of indiscretion but that isn't the norm or, I believe, likely in the case above. If you think I'm being a little too harsh here, you don't just have to take my word for it …

Since speaking to these parents I have shared their story with a number of students (both male and female) at the schools I have visited during the rest of the week and asked their opinion on why they thought this young man would have admitted to the 'couple of sips' and could there be any ulterior motives behind his confession? Without exception the first question I was asked by these students was "Could the parents have told that he had been drinking?" and when I told them that I didn't think they could they were all extremely suspicious … Here are a couple of responses that I thought were particularly interesting:

• "He wanted to see how far he could push his parents and see if being honest was going to stop him getting into trouble. Lots of my friends from strict families told their parents they wanted to be honest and not go behind their back in an effort to be able to get them to give them alcohol to take to parties. Sometimes it worked …" (Year 11 female)
• "You're only honest like that if you think you may get caught … I think he must have something else to hide or he's using telling the truth to get something else!" (Year 11 male)
• "I never lie to my parents but I don't tell them everything! It would be very unusual for a guy to admit to drinking if he wasn't going to get caught. I think he worked out that this would be a good way of breaking the rules and not getting into real trouble …"  (Year 10, male)
• "You want your parents to trust you and you don't want to lie to them but sometimes you have to. I try to be as honest as I can with my Dad - I know that if I am honest about what I do (or as honest as I can be up to a point), I'm more likely to get what I want." (Year 11 female)

Honesty is incredibly important and, of course, you want your teen to tell you the truth. However, if a rule is broken, there needs to be a consequence - hopefully one that you have worked out beforehand, i.e., if you do this, then that will happen … Now, if all of a sudden you ignore the fact that your child broke one of your rules simply because they have been honest about their indiscretion, you are setting yourself up for an awful lot of problems in the future … 

So what did I recommend these parents should do? Firstly, they need to make it very clear to their son that they are proud of his decision to be honest with them about what he had done. Tell him that they always want him to be honest and feel that he can go to them at any time and tell them the truth about anything and everything. It doesn't matter what he does, they will always love him. That said, he broke a rule and, as a result, there has to be consequence. If a consequence had already been decided on (e.g., if he was caught drinking at a party then he wouldn't be allowed to go to the next one he was invited to), then that should be applied. If you believe the honesty warrants the consequence be modified slightly, that's fine but don't drop it altogether. If one had not been already agreed upon, ask the teen what he believes should happen. In my experience, young people often come up with great consequences - usually both fair and age-appropriate. Remember, this is not a 'death by hanging' offence - he doesn't need to be grounded for a month! Consequences need to be 'short and sharp' - drag them out and your child is going to completely forget what they did and only end up resenting you ... 

Do I believe that this course of action by the parents will lead to a subsequent tsunami of lies and deceit? Of course not! If they've made it clear that they don't support underage drinking and there will be consequences if he gets caught breaking the family rules, research suggests that he's less likely to drink and if he does, he will drink less. But he's 15 and if he wants to drink alcohol he is going to find a way to do just that. I could be wrong (remember, I don't know the young man and his relationship with his parents) but I believe he was most probably seeing how far he could get away with pushing the boundaries - if that is the case, it's important to ensure that he is made aware that simply being 'honest' is not going to mean that important family rules and values can be undermined. 

Read More »

Vodka, vodka, vodka: Why is it so popular amongst teens and why is it so problematic?

The death earlier this week of a 15-year-old Sydney girl from apparent alcohol poisoning attracted a great deal of media attention across the country. According to media reports she had been drinking alone and returned a blood alcohol reading of 0.4 with the NSW Police stating that the girl "sourced an alcoholic drink recipe from an online site, then put the information to the test." 

Although there has been a great deal of speculation about what actually happened, as the police have made it clear that "the investigation is in its infancy" and we really won't know exactly what went down until the post mortem examination takes place sometime this week. A relative was quoted as saying that the young woman had consumed a bottle of vodka and early reports spoke about police seizing energy drinks, with lollies added to the apparent list of things that could possibly have been used in later stories. 

Until we know what actually happened I think we have to be careful about how we use this story when communicating messages to young people … Certainly NSW Police have already used the death to highlight the dangers of young people accessing and then using online recipes for alcoholic cocktails. Type 'getting drunk faster' into YouTube's search engine and you will be provided with 665,000 results - some of which are absolutely terrifying! This is a great message and a timely reminder for parents to be aware of the type of information that young people are able to access online but I hope we don't lose sight of the fact that, based on the reports so far, this young woman apparently drank a lot of alcohol and we must never forget that alcohol poisoning kills a number of teens every year ...

Regular readers of my blog would know that I have been involved in a number of alcohol-related deaths over the years. Sadly, most of these are usually are young women around the age of 15 and almost all of them have involved vodka. Very few of these deaths received any media attention, with the parents involved understandably reluctant to come forward and speak about their loss. Now I need to be very clear that we do not know whether this girl had consumed vodka or not but with a blood alcohol reading as high as has been reported it is highly likely that she would have been drinking spirits and, without a doubt, vodka is the drink of choice for young women who want to get drunk. If we do end up finding that vodka was in the mix, I just hope that the media doesn't become obsessed with the so-called 'drug cocktail' and focus on the mix of energy drinks and lollies … of course, accessing 'weird and wacky' recipes online is dangerous but so is drinking a bottle of vodka, no matter what else is or isn't added to it!

Many parents are totally unaware of the popularity of vodka until they hold a teenage party and start the big 'clean-up' the next morning, only to find empty bottles of the stuff littering their garden or hidden in various nooks and crannies around the place. So many Mums and Dads have told me that they didn't really grasp the extent of vodka consumption amongst young people until their son's or daughter's 18th birthday when suddenly the partygoers' drinking behaviour was out in the open. But in reality, it is as far back as Year 10 where we actually start to see consumption of this product become a real issue. Some of the early drinkers who were experimenting in Year 9 have now been messing around with pre-mixed drinks for a while and start to work out that if they want to get drunk quickly (at a cheaper cost), they need to dump the 'lolly water' and buy a bottle of spirits, with vodka usually being the drink of choice.

So why is it vodka that enjoys this popularity, particularly amongst young women? Some of the reasons include the following:

• it is seen as a 'cool' drink (mainly due to the advertising promoting this product and its target audience). Vodka is now marketed to a much younger age group than it was in the past. Where once spirit advertising targeted older men, drinks such as vodka are now closely associated with young women, the youth nightlife scene and partying
• they believe it to be free of calories (completely untrue). Like most alcohol, vodka does not contain any fat – but it does have calories, with a 'shot' of vodka containing just under 100. A bottle of vodka has approximately 2200 calories – more than a woman's total allowance per day, not including the mixer!
• it is undetectable (where they get this idea is beyond me - have they ever smelt a vodka drinker's breath?). The taste of many vodka brands can be more easily masked by mixers, like orange juice, than other spirits but it certainly does have a smell and can be easily detected on a young person's breath
• it is less likely to cause a hangover (unfortunately, true to some extent!). One cause of a hangover is the presence of 'congeners' and these are what makes alcohol dark, i.e., the more congeners, the darker the alcohol, the greater the headache the next day. Of course, over consumption of any alcohol product is going to lead to feeling unwell the morning after but vodka has less congeners than most other alcoholic drinks

When I talk about vodka to a group of Year 10s and tell them that if they are sharing a bottle between three of them they are drinking the equivalent of 22 glasses of beer you can literally see jaws dropping to the ground! They have no idea how much alcohol they are actually consuming. For many of those who are drinking in Year 10, particularly the girls, their lives revolve around a vodka bottle on a Saturday night. Three or four young women can drink a bottle of vodka in about 90 minutes and still be walking and talking (remember they don't experience the 'depressant' effects of alcohol like adults with fully-developed brains). As a result, many young people simply have no idea what they are doing to themselves when they consume these products and the risks involved with drinking large quantities when they are so young!

Interestingly, by Year 11 the 'hardcore' male drinkers have usually moved away from vodka. It doesn't take them very long to progress to dark spirits, with bourbon, whiskey and rum being the more likely drinks consumed by this age group.

The problem is that spirits are so much more dangerous than other alcoholic drinks, particularly in relation to the following:

• Spirits or premixed spirits enable you to drink more alcohol, much more quickly when compared to other drinks. As already stated, if a group of young people share a bottle of spirits between them in a session they are drinking the equivalent of up to 22 glasses of full strength beer, 22 cans of mid-strength beer, more than 2 litres of a cask of red wine, or more than three bottles of champagne. For many young people, if they tried to drink this amount of wine or beer they would find it difficult to do so quickly - unlike spirits they are 'self-limiting' to some extent, i.e., you drink, you bloat, you vomit!
• Due to the high alcohol content, it takes a comparatively small amount of spirits to cause alcohol poisoning or overdose. It is important to remember that it takes much less vodka, rum or whisky to get drunk than beer or wine. It would only take minutes to drink two shots of vodka (60mls), whereas for most people it would take much longer to drink beer containing the equivalent amount of alcohol (two 285ml glasses – 570mls), thus greatly increasing the risk of poisoning or overdose

It can be so depressing sometimes speaking to a Year 10 group and see those two or three small groups of 'party people' who are so obviously messing around with vodka on a weekly basis. They are usually totally unaware of how much they are actually drinking when they share a bottle of spirits and often don't feel any significant after effects the morning after. Sadly, when things do wrong with vodka (or any other spirit), they go terribly wrong. Drinking a bottle of vodka (or bourbon or any other spirit) is potentially life threatening, whether you're a teenager or an adult. If it doesn't kill you as a result of alcohol poisoning, the possibility of major damage to the liver and the rest of your body over time is very real!  

Read More »

Looking after a drunk person: How can we ensure the person providing the care is safe?

At some point during their teens most young people, regardless of whether they drink themselves or not, will have to look after a drunk friend, family member or someone they have come across at a party or gathering. It is therefore incredibly important to make sure we arm them with good quality information about alcohol and its effects, as well as providing them with practical strategies that will enable them to do this effectively. Making sure the drunk person is safe - i.e., that they don't lose consciousness or choke on their own vomit - is incredibly important but it is also just important to make sure that the person providing the care is also safe.

Looking after a drunk person, whether they are a friend or not, is potentially risky. Drunk people can be unpredictable and, of course, aggressive behaviour is a very real risk. So many things can go wrong and over the years I have seen some shocking injuries inflicted by drunk people on friends. Some of these include the following:

•  a 15-year-old girl permanently scarred when a drunk friend's ring caught her eyelid as she was trying to put her into a safe position
•  a number of both young men and women who have had their earrings or nose-rings yanked out, tearing their lobe or nostril, while trying to look after an intoxicated mate. In almost all of these cases, the drunk friend was not violent or overly aggressive, it was simply a sudden arm or hand movement attempting to push their friend away that resulted in the injury
• a 17-year-old young man who was pushed away by his best friend who was trying to help him, causing him to fall backwards and hit his head, resulting in a brain-related injury

As I say to young people in my presentations, of course it is important to look after your drunk friend and try to keep them safe but knowing when it is time to hand that person over to someone else, or at least get other people to help you is vital. If a drunk person starts to fight you in any way (and that does not necessarily mean clenching their fists and trying to punch you - simply resisting you or 'swatting' you away can be potentially dangerous), you need to get someone else to assist you to deal with the situation. 

It is also important to acknowledge that the majority of injuries I have seen have not been inflicted by young men. Talk to teens and they will tell you that they are likely to be more cautious looking after drunk males, particularly those who are a little larger. That's not a bad thing to keep at the back of your mind. One careless arm movement, particularly by those bigger blokes affected by alcohol (although a smaller one can do just as much damage), could cause a great deal of damage to someone attempting to look after them - at the very least a black eye or a bloody nose, at worse, potential brain damage (as in the case above) or even death. Where most of the really horrific injuries have come from, however, is the jewellery worn by young women, particularly rings (although bracelets can also be problematic). As well as possibly causing cuts and scratches across the face of the person looking after their drunk friend, these items can also can cause potentially devastating injuries to their eyes or get caught in facial jewellery (as discussed above). Fingernails can also cause injuries, admittedly these are more likely to be quite superficial (i.e., cuts and scratches), but nevertheless, they need to be considered.

Recently I have added a new section to my presentation around looking after a drunk friend, this time discussing the potential risks young men face when attempting to assist an intoxicated young woman. Over the last 18 months I have had contact with three families all going through a very similar experience. All of them have asked me not to use their particular case in a blog entry, however, they all agreed to allow me to 'merge' their three stories into one (using elements of each to create one case study), thus maintaining their anonymity. 

James was 18 and attending one of the final parties being held for his Year 12 cohort. He was the designated driver and had not been drinking. The three friends he had arrived with wanted to stay a little longer but James had had enough and decided to go home. Just before leaving the party he walked upstairs to use the bathroom. When he opened the door he found one of his female classmates lying on the floor incredibly drunk. She was conscious but only just … She had vomited over herself and was crying. James knew the girl was in his class but didn't know her or her friends particularly well. He walked in and set about looking after her. After about 30 minutes he helped the girl out of the bathroom and took her downstairs to her friends. He then left the party, drove home and went to bed. He was woken up by his mother and told that there were police at the door. They were there to arrest him for sexual assault. 

Her friends had taken the young woman home and shortly afterwards her parents took her to the police. According to the police report, the girl claimed that while she had been drunk James had taken advantage of the situation and she had been sexually assaulted. 

Now the only people who know what actually happened that night are the two people who were in that bathroom. I know the incident has totally destroyed two families and will in all likelihood continue to cause damage for some time to come. I need to make it clear that I have not met the young woman or her family. I have, however, had a number of discussions with James and his parents. I believe that the only good thing that can ever come from this story is to use it to highlight some important messages to other young men about how to look after drunk girls and keep themselves safe while they do so … I now tell James' story in my presentation to Year 10s and highlight two big mistakes he made in the handling of this situation. Put simply, young men need to be aware of the following messages that may help prevent them from finding themselves in a similar dilemma:

• never be alone with a drunk girl - ever! Does that mean that James shouldn't have looked after the girl in the bathroom? Should he have just simply walked away and left her there? Of course not! His first mistake was that he didn't get help from others immediately. As soon as he realized the girl was in trouble he should have yelled, screamed or got onto his phone and called for someone to come upstairs and help him look after her … There was a party going on downstairs, there were so many people there - one other person being present is all that was needed. It doesn't matter whether you know the young woman or not, being alone with someone who is drunk and vulnerable, puts you in an extremely compromising position. 
• make sure you can be seen by others at all times … In this case, James shut the bathroom door. He insists that he did so to protect the young woman's reputation. She was a mess and according to his version of the story, he did not want other people to see her in the state she was in … Now whether or not that is true, it is a dangerous thing to do. Always make sure you are potentially visible to others - never shut doors or take intoxicated people to dark parts of the garden. I get that friends want to shield their mates from 'prying eyes' (and in these days of cameras being everywhere it is not surprising that the first thing that crosses most young peoples' minds when they come across a drunk friend is to get them away from others who may take a photo and post it online) but when you're not able to be found because you have closed a door or taken them somewhere that is difficult to access, it is not surprising that questions are asked about your motives …

Of course, both of these messages are also applicable to young women, although the reasons for never being alone with a drunk guy or maintaining some degree of visibility are very different. As with other violent crimes, research shows that around half of all sexual assaults are committed by men who have drank alcohol. No matter how incapacitated the drunk young man is they can still hurt a girl trying to look after them, whether that be via sexual assault or in some other way. 

When you talk to young people about how to look after drunk friends their response is amazing. They sit on the edge of their seats and soak up every piece of information and practical strategy you can give them. They are desperate for knowledge in this area. As already said, even if they don't drink alcohol themselves, almost every teen will have to look after a drunk friend at some point during their adolescence. What staggers me is that we continue to see parents who send their 15-year-old son or daughter out on a Saturday night (some with a 4 or 6 pack of alcohol in hand) who have never had a discussion about what to do if something goes wrong … They're going out to parties and gatherings that are potentially very dangerous events, particularly when alcohol is thrown into the mix, even a little bit of safety information from a parent can be invaluable. 

Schools can only do so much, parents have to play their part in keeping their child safe … Don't be frightened to use your own experiences as a teen to highlight potential risks. Having a discussion about looking after a vomiting friend, when to call an ambulance and expressing your support of doing so should they believe it is appropriate, is so important. At the same time, highlighting the potential dangers associated with looking after a drunk friend is vital. We don't want them so frightened of the things that could go wrong that they simply abandon drunk friends and leave them to their own devices. The key message here is knowing when it is time to hand that person over to others (preferably sober adults) and never try to do this by yourself (no matter how honourable your motives may be) … It's not going to be an easy discussion but it's an important one ...

Read More »

When should you start the conversation about alcohol with your child?

In the last couple of weeks I've been asked a number of times when I believe is the best time to start the conversation about alcohol with your child. I'm often asked this question and I've written about this before but thought it may be a good idea to update a blog I wrote a couple of years ago that discussed this important issue …

A US report published in 2015 aimed at preventing binge drinking in young people recommended that parents should start talking to their children about alcohol at age 9. Co-author of the report, Dr Lorena Siqueira was reported as saying that the reason to start the conversation this early was that "kids are starting to develop impressions (about alcohol) as early as 9 years." She went on to say that for prevention to actually work, or at least have some effect, it's better for parents to influence ideas about alcohol early, rather than trying to change their impressions later, from positive to negative.

I've written many times that I believe that you should start talking to your child about drugs the minute you start giving them to them. We live in a pharmaceutical world where we have become convinced that for every problem we have, there is a drug that can fix it. Think about it for a moment – if you are depressed, you take a pill, if you can't get an erection, you take a pill – we start medicating our children from a very early age and begin to train them to be very effective drug users not long after they are born. One of my earlier blog entries discusses how parents can use pharmaceutical drugs and over-the-counter medications to have those initial conversations about drugs and how they are used. But what about alcohol? In reality this is the drug you are most likely going to have issues with your teen about - if you're meant to start the conversation at age 9, what in heavens are you meant to say? 

Most importantly parents should use every available opportunity to talk about the issue. Alcohol is everywhere. If kids are not seeing the adults around them drinking it, they are seeing it on TV, on billboards and on the side of buses and, of course, if they watch televised sport or attend a football game with you, it is likely to be saturated with alcohol advertising. The alcohol industry has done an incredible job of ensuring that you really can't get away from their product and although the ABAC Responsible Alcohol Marketing Code outlines regulations around alcohol advertising (e.g., ads should not show alcohol as the cause of or contributing to the achievement of personal, business, social, sporting, sexual or other success), they are still able to make drinking look pretty damn good! Parents need to ensure that, when and where appropriate, they challenge these messages by discussing the potential dangers associated with alcohol.

It's also important to remember that children at this age are asking lots of questions about things around them, including alcohol. It is highly likely that, if you drink, your drinking behaviour (or the behaviour of other family members or friends) will be questioned in some way. This can be incredibly confronting for parents but it provides a great opportunity for you to let your child know your views around alcohol and drinking, as well as reinforce your family values. This list of questions a child may ask, as well as some potential answers has been adapted from a Canadian resource developed by Parent Action on Drugs (PAD) called An Early Start: Drug Education Begins at Home and provides some suggestions for parents who may get asked those curly ones that they don't quite know how to deal with appropriately:

• "Can I have a sip of your beer?" "No. This is a drink for adults and it's not good for children. There are other drinks that are more suitable for young people of your age."

• "Why do you drink it?" "I enjoy the taste, but if I drink too much it will change the way I feel, so I have to be careful."
• "What’s in this drink that makes it taste so funny?" "This drink has alcohol in it. It's a drink for adults. Young people prefer the taste of other drinks and as they become adults their tastes may change. Some people never end up liking the taste though and so they choose never to drink alcohol."
• "Why did Uncle Jim start walking and talking funny at the party last night?" "Uncle Jim had too much alcohol to drink. Too much alcohol can make you feel and act differently. It can even make you very sick. What do you think about the way he acted?"
• "Why do you have a glass of wine with dinner?""When people eat, most usually drink something at the same time. You have your water or juice, I have a glass of wine. Some adults choose to drink wine with a meal because it goes with what we are eating - because we are older we taste things in a different way. It can make the food taste different for an adult. Alcohol can also make you sick if you have too much, but drinking it with a meal is the safest way to drink."

It is very clear that parents' attitudes and use influence a child's view and subsequent use of alcohol. According to the US report mentioned above, 80% of teenagers say that their parents are the biggest influence on their decision to drink. The PAD resource asks parents the following:

"Try to imagine your children watching you and others drink. Do they see you unwind with a drink? Do all of your social events and celebrations include alcohol? Do you ever ask your children to bring a drink to you?"

As I've said many times before, this doesn't mean you shouldn't drink alcohol in front of your child - you're an adult, you're allowed to do whatever you want as far as alcohol is concerned. It's just important to remember that everything you do is being watched and is having an impact. If every time you walk out the door to attend a social function or go out for dinner you have a brown paper bag with a couple of bottles in it, you are sending a very strong message to your child about the role alcohol plays in your socialising. There's nothing wrong with that and I'm certainly not saying that you should start sneaking alcohol out of the house under your jumper, you just need to talk about it! Talk about your alcohol use and how you ensure that you don't drink in a risky way. Make sure they know that you never drink drive and that a decision is always made about who will be the designated driver for the night well before you leave the house. Most importantly, make sure you hammer the simple message that drinking alcohol is 'adult behaviour', it's what adults do, not children or teens. Discuss it in the same way as driving. Driving is adult behaviour, teenagers never question that there is a 'line in the sand' as far as that behaviour is concerned. No matter how mature you are, you can't drive until you reach a certain age - drinking alcohol is exactly the same, you really shouldn't drink until you're an adult!

As I have said many times, it is impossible for a parent-child relationship to exist without positive communication. The most important thing to remember when it comes to talking about any difficult subject, and that includes alcohol, is that it's not a five-minute 'talk' — it's about building an ongoing dialogue. Starting nice and early builds a great foundation and as stated above, hopefully influences positive values about alcohol early, rather than trying to change more negative views they are likely to establish later from watching the world around them.

Reference:
Siqueira, L. & Smith, V.C. (2015). Binge drinking. Pediatrics 136, e718-726.

Read More »

'Sleepovers': Are they always as 'innocent' as they sound?

Just over four years ago I was contacted by a mother who couldn't wait to tell me her story about a 'sleepover' she had recently held for her daughter's 14th birthday. I wrote an article about her experience and shared it. Last week she contacted me again, this time to tell me about her now 18-year-old daughter and what went down at the event celebrating that birthday… We're in the process of putting together a piece about that but after reading what I wrote when I first heard from her, I thought it may be a good idea to update it and share it again …

Jane is the mother of three girls, the eldest of which just turned 14. To celebrate her daughter's recent birthday, she agreed to hold a small gathering with a few of her friends being invited. After some discussion about what she wanted (and what Jane was willing to do!)  four friends were invited for a 'sleepover' on a Saturday night. The girls would stay the night and Jane would provide food, some games and a video or the like through the night. The family had only just moved to a new city and new school and Jane did not really know any of her daughter's friends and saw the event as not only a good way to get to know them but also their parents.

Invitations were written and hand-delivered to the four girls at school (something Jane didn't feel entirely comfortable about but was told that this was the way it was done) and later told by her daughter that all of them would be attending. Over the next week Jane waited to hear something from any of the parents - her number had been included on the invitation and she had anticipated that there would be some type of questions asked about the night and what was planned - but there was nothing! After discussions with her husband, she agreed that they must just be waiting for the actual evening to check things out and it would all be sorted when the girls were dropped off on the night. That was not the case, however, as each of the girls were dropped off in the driveway (although Jane could not guarantee that as she did not see all of the cars actually arriving) and not one of the parents accompanied their daughter to the door! She did not meet one of the parents, had not been asked anything about the event and what was going to be happening and really didn't even know if they had any idea who their daughters were with and where they actually were ...

Jane was flabbergasted! These were 14-year-old girls - the potential for tragic consequences were very real and yet their parents couldn't even be bothered to make one simple call or take a quick walk down a driveway to find out who they were leaving their daughters with for the evening. Totally gobsmacking! Not one of these parents had ever met Jane or her husband before (the family had only recently moved from interstate), they knew nothing about their values and how they would be supervising the sleepover, or even who would be doing the supervising. They didn't even know if there were adults in the house when they dropped their daughters off! As she said, these were four teenage girls (getting changed into sleepwear at some point!) who would staying the night at her house and their parents knew absolutely nothing about what was going to go down ...

Sleepovers are not a new phenomenon – they have been around for a long time and play a key role in how young people learn to socialize during the pre-teen and early teen years. I believe that if your child wants to attend a sleepover and you believe it is going to be a safe event, you should absolutely let them go … It is becoming increasingly obvious, however, that these are not always the innocent events that they purport to be ... Of course, there are those, like the event that Jane put on for her daughter, that are exactly what you would expect them to be, i.e., nights involving young teens staying over at a friend's house doing fun things. That said, 'sleepovers' can also be 'teenage code' for "I'm going out to a party drinking and I'm not telling my parents!" Telling your parents that you're going to a friend's house for a sleepover and won't be home until mid-morning the next day is a great way of getting around parental rules governing parties and gatherings, as well as ensuring that they won't be able to detect if they've been drinking alcohol. It's the perfect cover and parents are falling for it 'hook, line and sinker'!

So how do you know if the sleepover is real or not? This is where I continue to get totally floored by some parents' behaviour because it's not exactly rocket science - call the house where the supposed event is taking place and ask the parents about what is planned! If your child won't give you a contact number, tries to tell you that you won't be able to reach them, or that the host parents don't have a phone (can you believe that some parents actually fall for that?) or that you would "shame them forever" if you do call - it's a pretty sure bet that something is up! Your child keeps you 'siloed' for a reason - sure, there's an element of embarrassment (i.e., they truly believe that nobody else's parent is going to ask those questions) but it's just as likely to be due to them not wanting you to know exactly what is going to happen. If you know to much you may not let them go ... What is amazing about Jane's story is that she did make herself available for parents, expecting them to call and check about the evening and not one of them did!

I have been trying to fathom the reasons why these parents wouldn't have made the call beforehand or walk their daughters to the door and meet the family that they were going to entrust their child to for the evening. I've come up with four possibilities – none of which adequately explain the parents' actions that night:

• they had 'blind trust' – trusting that the parents hosting the event would do the 'right thing', had the same values and attitudes as them and, as a result, their child would be supervised appropriately and would be safe for the night
• they were bullied by their 14-year-old daughter and told that they couldn't make contact with another parent for fear of 'shaming' them in some way
• they had plans for the evening and if they did too much digging, they may have to actually say 'no' to their daughter and look after her themselves, i.e., the 'sleepover' offered a free child-minding service and they didn't want that spoiled
• they just don't care!

Some may say I'm being too harsh here (and certainly the final two reasons I've put forward are pretty brutal) but really if anyone can come up with a better reason, please let me know.

As I said, there are 'legitimate' sleepovers held every weekend across the country and there are many parents who are trying to do the right thing and monitor their teens the best they can (and I get that it's not always easy!) but Jane's story highlights a significant issue that is of great concern. How many parents really know where their teens are on a Saturday night and how hard are some of them trying to find out? A sleepover sounds innocent enough (and in many cases, that's exactly what they are) but it is still vital that parents talk to each other and find out as much as possible about what is going to go down. Walking your 14-year-old son or daughter to the door of someone you are entrusting them to for the evening is not really that difficult and is crucial if you want to ensure your teen's safety ...

Teens are going to try to push the boundaries as much as possible, particularly during those difficult years of 14-16 years when they are first learning how to be young adults. It's a parent's job to try to keep them safe through this time and the best way to do that is to monitor them as best you can - i.e., know where they are, who they're with and when they'll be home - always remembering that sometimes they are going to lie straight to your face when you ask them these questions. It is important therefore that checks are done to verify the information they provide! It takes some work but isn't your child's safety and wellbeing worth it?

Read More »

What do teens really think about parents and their parenting? What advice would they give them about appropriate rules and boundaries?

Every parent is going to 'parent' their child in a different way and, if there's one certainty in this area, it is most probably that if you try and parent all your children in the same way it's most probably not going to work particularly well. Parenting theories come and go and what was promoted heavily as the 'way to go' a decade ago may not be regarded in the same way today ...

But what do teens think about their parents' parenting practices? When a young person approaches me and discusses the issues they may be having with their Mum or Dad around alcohol and parties, usually complaining about the rules and boundaries that are being imposed, I always ask them why they think their parents are doing what they're doing ... The answer is nearly always the same - "They're trying to ruin my life!" Now, as I always say in response, I'm sure that is not true, but at that point in their life that is exactly how they are feeling. A whole pile of boundaries are being put into place that are stopping them from doing what they want to do and realistically it's pretty difficult to shift their thinking at this point. As far as they're concerned, you don't understand them, their lives are being wrecked and it's all your fault ...

A few years ago, The Guardian newspaper ran an online story from the UK titled 'Your child is going to experiment: what teenagers really think'. It's a great piece and well worth a read. Written by "Suzanne Moore and a load of kids" (you'll understand what that means in a moment), the journalist talks about how it feels to be a parent of a teenager (she was onto her third at the time of publication). But what makes this article really interesting are the pieces written by 10 young people (ranging in age from 13-17 years) at the end, where these UK teens are asked to comment on parenting practices and 'what works' and what doesn't ... If you've got a few minutes, read the full article but I thought I'd just highlight a couple of quotes from some of these teens

"Sometimes parents need to think about giving their teenagers a little bit more freedom and understanding. If we are trusted, then we feel more independent and grown-up, so we are going to come home happy, instead of sitting on the phone all night."

"Parents also need to realize that not all teenagers are rebels. But if we do make mistakes, that's how we are going to learn. My mum sees dangers where there aren't any. Even if you think a certain friend might not be good for us, we have to figure it out for ourselves sometimes."

Marima, 14

"When I go out, my mum worries far too much - she wants to know all the details, who is going to be there, exactly where we are going. Parents worry about us spending time with people they don't know, but I don't know all of their friends, so it's not weird that they don't know all of mine. My advice would be: ask kids for some details, make sure at least one person you know will be there and the time they are coming back, but then give some freedom."

"For me, the secret to having a happy teen is giving them space and freedom - without that, there is no fun and happiness. But you also need to find common ground - with my dad, I watch crime thrillers; with my mum, Downton Abbey. It's good to have a thing you can bond over."
Katie, 13

"Whenever I get told off by my mum, she gives me these really long lectures. Seriously, they are so long that by the end of them I can't even remember what we were talking about. When it comes to my dad, he's much more short and snappy ... Don't  send your kids to sleep with a lecture - if you shout, at least we will remember what it was about ... My advice for parents is, if you want something doing, don't constantly go on about it, just say it once. If you say it multiple times, we just won't feel like it."

"Sometimes parents try to engage with their kids and it goes wrong. One time my mum was texting me, using all this youth language. I was thinking, what's going on? Has someone stolen my mum's phone? I found it pretty weird."

Faris, 13

"When I'm going to a party, Mum wants me to call her when I get there, after an hour, when I leave. She says she wants me to have my independence, then takes it away by asking for the phone number of the place I'm going. They want you to get a job, but won't let you stay at a friend's house. Teenagers are hypocritical about this, too: our need for independence changes by the minute ... Parents worry about our independence. It's probably because they know that we are about to become adults and, in a way, they worry we're going to turn into them."
Olly, 16

"I can talk to my parents about anything to do with school. When I was bullied, I talked to my mum and dad, and it got resolved. I was scared that talking about it could make it worse, but when you've got someone reassuring you, you can clear your head and think straight. As you grow up, your friends become your second parents, but when things are getting out of hand, your parents have the final say."

"It's all about balance. You have to know your can talk to your parents about anything. Parents have to trust their teens to do the right thing, but if they don't, take a step back and still be there for them."

Matt, 17

"I've been doing exams. After the first one, my dad took me out for tea. It was great to have a bit of father-and-son time. I think parents should do that, even just asking how something went or if you need help ... Make time for them (teens) and listen. If your parents are interested, it gives you a real boost."
Craig, 15

"You should talk to teens casually, not all raging and exaggerating the issue. On things like drinking, everyone does it. It's not a new thing and it's just part of being a teen. Despite what the media says, teens aren't bad. We have goals and know about current affairs and how we can change things. We might not watch the news, but we find stuff out on the internet."

"My one piece of advice to parents would be to set boundaries with your teen, but also to let them do their own thing. Make sure they have awareness, rather than saying they can't do something. Don't be too strict, because then teens won't tell you anything. I know people who've gone down that route. Once it starts, you become more distant and then there's no way back."

Katt, 16

When you read these it becomes pretty clear that teens, no matter their age, have a couple of simple messages they want to convey to parents - we're not all bad, we're growing up and want a level of freedom and independence, but at the same time they acknowledge that parents need to balance that with fair and age-appropriate boundaries and maintain a positive 'connection' with them. If you want to simplify that down to a 'parenting style', that's good, old-fashioned 'authoritative parenting' - rules, consequences, bound in unconditional love. Of course, it's never going to be as simple as that - the theory is all well and good but when it comes down to the actual practicalities of negotiating what will and won't be happening on a Saturday night, it is likely never to be easy ... It's important for parents to be aware, however, that amidst all the shouting and slamming of doors and the proclamations of "I hate you!" and "You're the only one who does that!", somewhere deep down (often deep, deep, deep down!) your teen has at least a limited understanding of why you do the things you do!

Read More »

'Vaping': What is it and is it 'safer' than smoking for our teens?

Recently I have received a number of messages from parents wanting to know more about 'vaping'. Each of them had recently found a device in their child's room and had little, or no idea, what it actually was, how it was used and whether it was harmful or not. Here is an edited version of one of the requests for information:

"Last weekend I found a strange-looking device in our son's room. When I asked him what it was he said it was a 'vape'. It looked like a long cigarette and when we asked him why he had it he told us that it was a 'bit of fun' and he and his mates occasionally used it when they got together. He insisted he only used it to do tricks and that these vapes were harmless. We confiscated it anyway and told him we wouldn't allow it in the house. Since then we found out that one of his friends is smoking cigarettes. Our son played it down and said his mate is actually using the device to try to give up smoking. Just last night I found another vape in my son's desk drawer as I was looking for something. I wasn't spying on him - he was in the room at the time. I confiscated it and again I got the same arguments - "Don't be ridiculous mum, these things are harmless" and "I only do tricks on them like blowing round circles!" So now I have two vapes confiscated. What should I do? Are they really harmless? I have got no clue what substance he has inside the vape."

So, what is a 'vape'? Essentially it's a street term for devices usually referred to as 'e-cigarettes'. So what exactly are these and how are they different from traditional cigarettes? More importantly, what are the harms associated with their use, particularly when it comes to young people?

Firstly, let me make it clear that I do not want to try to get into the middle of the debate that has been raging in the smoking cessation area for the past few years. There are some in the tobacco prevention area who believe that e-cigarettes could (and should) play a major role in assisting smokers quit in this country, while there are others who are staunchly opposed to their use and have campaigned (and for the most part been successful) to ensure there is a blanket ban of these devices. My only concern here is for young people and their parents and trying to sort out 'fact from fiction'.

An e-cigarette is a nicotine delivery device that simulates tobacco smoking by producing a vapour. Operated by a battery, it vaporizes a liquid solution (called 'e-liquid' or 'e-juice') which may contain nicotine (amongst other things, including a range of flavours from fruit through to chocolate and bubble-gum) and is promoted by manufacturers as being 'safer' than traditional smoking because it is a tobacco-free product that eliminates the burning process. When the liquid is turned into a vapour, this is inhaled or 'vaped'. Confusing the issue is that many of these e-liquids are nicotine free, with these devices simply releasing a flavoured vapour!

We have little up-to-date data on how many Australian teens are vaping. What we do have suggests that this is an issue that we need to monitor carefully. According to the latest Australian Secondary School Students Alcohol and Other Drugs (ASSAD) study conducted in 2014, 13% of 12-17-year-old students reported that they had ever used an e-cigarette. Use increased with age, from 5% of 12-year-olds to 22% of 17-year-olds, with young men being more likely to say that they had ever tried (one quarter (25.8%) of 17-year-old males), with 7.7% reporting use in the previous four weeks. It is unclear as to whether use has increased since that data was collected but from the anecdotal reports I am getting from schools and parents, it certainly seems as though this issue has not gone away ...

So are these devices legal? It is currently illegal in Australia for commercial retail outlets to sell nicotine e-cigarettes. Regulation of the sale of non-nicotine e-cigarettes continues to vary across Australian state and territory jurisdictions. While nicotine e-cigarettes or the nicotine vial refills may be purchased online for personal use, throughout Australia it is illegal to do this without a medical prescription for nicotine. As far as schools are concerned, most of those I have spoken to about this issue have elected to view these devices as tobacco products, whether or not they contain nicotine, and deal with them accordingly.

I have one major concern about these devices, regardless of whether they contain nicotine or not. We continue to have some of the lowest smoking rates in the world, particularly amongst school-based young people, due in no small part to making smoking be seen as anti-social. Even though e-cigarettes don't involve 'smoking' per se, they still simulate the practice and there is a very real danger that the 'anti-social' message could be eroded over time. This issue is compounded by the number of times you see these devices now being used on American TV programs, particularly comedy shows, where they are usually (but not always) using them to smoke cannabis. Now that cannabis has been legalised for recreational use in California, we are seeing more and more US comedy shows using the vaping (and smoking) of cannabis to get a laugh.

In the mother's message above she talks about her son telling her that he "only used it to do tricks". Type in 'vaping tricks' into YouTube and you will literally see hundreds of videos that have been uploaded by people from around the world. Some of you may remember some of the party tricks that smokers would do back in the days when smoking a cigarette was pretty cool - these vaping videos put all of those to shame! This compilation video of vaping tricks clearly shows why some young people are attracted to these devices. Ok, it's not smoking, but vaping's increased presence on TV shows and in other media certainly increase the visibility (and possibly perceived acceptability) of a behaviour that for a long time was seen in a very negative light, particularly by young people. Most worryingly, smoking (or something that looks a lot like smoking) becomes 'cool' again.

So does the evidence suggest that vaping by teens is a 'gateway' to smoking? As the mother discusses in her message, it would certainly appear that there are some young people who could be vaping in an attempt to quit smoking. The research evidence in this area is mixed and both sides of the e-cigarette debate often throw the same data around to support their particular stand, which makes it even more difficult to sort through! There have been studies that suggests vaping is actually 'replacing' rather than 'encouraging' tobacco smoking amongst young people, while others have found that those who do experiment with vaping are, in fact, actually more likely to become smokers. This is usually explained by the fact that teens who experiment with vaping are more likely to be sensation-seekers, who would be more inclined to try smoking later anyway. Regardless, adolescent vaping cannot be ignored and some parents are going to find themselves faced with having to deal with finding out their teen is using one of these devices.

The one thing that all those in tobacco prevention field agree on is that whatever policy is adopted in the e-cigarette area, it should include some kind of restrictions around vaping by young people. As an excellent article written for the New York Times by Lisa Damour titled 'How to Talk With Teenagers About Vaping' states - "Vaping is generally understood to be less risky than smoking. But not vaping is healthier than vaping". She then goes onto talk through some simple strategies that parents can use in this area. Even though most use by teens appears to be experimental and regular use is rare, what is abundantly clear is that trying to prevent young people vaping is a good idea!

What's my advice for parents in this area and what did I say to the mother who sent me through the message? Firstly, I recommend parents follow how most schools are dealing with these devices - treat them just like you would any tobacco product, regardless of whether they contain nicotine or not. In most cases, parents would have outlined their expectations and values around tobacco smoking and if they then subsequently found their child with a pack of cigarettes, most would confiscate the product and roll out a consequence. You have to make the decision for yourself but as far as young people are concerned, it is most probably best to regard experimenting with smoking or vaping in the same light.

What happened in this mother's case is that she found the product, confiscated it and then made it clear to her son that such a device was not allowed in the house and then he openly defied her. Strike one! He also successfully bamboozled her with information about a product she knew nothing about and left her floundering. She was completely left on the back foot! Strike two! As I always say to parents who contact me when they have found some strange product, device or substance in their child's room, don't react before trying to find out exactly what you're dealing with! By all means remove it if you feel you need to but then do your best to try to find out all you can about what it is as quickly as possible (and don't just rely on what your teen tells you!). The best place to go in the first place is the Alcohol and Drug Information Service in your state and territory (you can find the number for where you live on the DARTA website). This is an anonymous and confidential telephone helpline manned by trained counsellors who should be able to provide you with some advice and information on whatever you may have found.

Vaping is not going to go away anytime soon and parents need to be prepared. Although smoking rates amongst young people are still at an all time low, parents continue to have discussions with their children about this issue. A friend of mine recently told me about a conversation she had with her 5-year-old daughter after she saw a 'no-smoking' sign and wanted to know what it was. When she told her, her child responded with "What's smoking?" It's a wonderful story and shows exactly how far we've come in this area. My advice is to add e-cigarettes to any discussion you may have around smoking - don't force the issue, let it come naturally - but raise it and let your child know exactly where you stand on young people and vaping.

References:
Damour, L. (2018). How to talk with teenagers about vaping. New York Times, February 14. https://ift.tt/2o5NDV6
accessed 13 April, 2018.

Read More »

If you give your teen two drinks to take to a party, is that all they're likely to drink? A group of 16-year-olds tell it from their perspective ...

Last week I got into a fairly heated discussion with some Year 11 students at a school I was visiting about a blog entry I had written about parents providing alcohol to teens to take to a party. Apparently when one of them had asked their parents to give them a couple of bottles to take to a friend's gathering (as they had a number of times before), they were told they were not going to be given any alcohol. They were then shown what I had written and told something along the lines of "Paul Dillon said ..." Now, as I've said many times before, I don't believe anyone can tell a parent what to do with their child in this area - you've got to make the decision for yourself. But when you've made that decision, whatever it is, own it! Firstly, to change your rules (i.e., provide alcohol for parties and then stop doing so for no real reason - this young man had not done anything wrong) is unfair and will undoubtedly lead to conflict. But most importantly, from my perspective, to put it all on me is totally inappropriate and, to be quite honest, demonstrates pretty poor parenting ...

Understandably, these students were not impressed! Considering what had gone down, they were incredibly respectful and polite. They could have gone on the attack but instead they just wanted to express their frustration and make it very clear to me that what I had written had affected their lives. The article they were referring to was one in which I discussed new Australian research that found that proving alcohol to young people is not protective and the best option for parents is 'delay, delay, delay'. The section that riled these students up was the claim the researchers made that "parental supply is associated with increased risk of other supply, not the reverse", i.e., if you give them alcohol, they're more likely to go and find more! They were adamant that in their case, this was simply not true - what they were given is what they drank, no more, no less!

Now I can only go by my experience over the years and what I have been told by teens about their drinking behaviour and when these research findings were released I wanted to shout the results from the rooftops! Finally we had some hard evidence that this idea of giving a 15-year-old a couple of drinks will result in them only drinking that much and could actually be 'protective' in the long-term was not true. Of course, there are always going to be some young people who do the 'right thing' and only drink what is provided but, we're dealing with teenagers and developing brains - even though they may have the best of intentions, bad decisions are likely to be made when surrounded by their peers in a party environment ... So when this group of five 16-year-olds (three young men and two young women) wanted to challenge me (and the research findings) I grabbed the opportunity to find out what they thought about this issue and what was actually happening amongst their peers.

As far as they were concerned, there were a few key points they believed that parents needed to be made aware of in terms of parental provision of alcohol. After I had taken those on board and agreed with them on most of what they said, I raised other issues and asked them to think about themselves and their peers and tell me their thoughts. To their credit they were incredibly honest and were willing to accept almost all of what I said ... I told them that I would be writing another article on the topic based on our discussion and wanted to come up with a series of key statements that they believed could assist parents to make a decision about whether or not to provide alcohol to their teen. Here are those statements, placed in order of importance according to those five young people:

• All young people are different and trying to come up with rules for teenagers as a group is unfair and is not going to work.  They felt strongly that they were often lumped into a group with kids who they felt 'did the wrong thing' and, as a consequence, their social lives were affected. A number of them felt that rules within one family could be different in some cases, with one boy believing that he and his older brother should have dramatically different rules. His brother drank to get drunk, whereas he only drank a little to socialize - the rules his parents imposed should reflect that 
• If parents want teenagers to develop into responsible adults, they need to trust them to do the right thing, particularly around alcohol.  They talked a lot about trust and how important it was that their parents trust them to make good choices. When I asked them whether they had ever lied to their parents about anything to do with alcohol and parties, it took a while but eventually all five of them said that they had ... Did they think they would lie again? All of them said they most probably would, mainly to protect their parents from knowing something that could upset them ...
• When parents do provide alcohol to teens to take to a party, some of them only drink what has been given to them, others do not. They were willing to accept that many of their friends certainly did drink far more than their parents had provided but this did not happen all of the time. It apparently depended on a range of things, including what type of party they were going to, if the teen was going to have to go home after the party or not and what other alcohol was available
• Some young people intend only to drink what has been given to them but when put into a social situation with peers can end up drinking far more. This was most probably the one statement I had difficulty getting them to agree with because all of them, particularly the young man who had initiated the conversation, insisted that they had never drunk more than had been provided. After a lot of discussion, all of them finally agreed that they had actually drunk more at least once, with a couple of them admitting to becoming quite ill as a result. The important thing they wanted to highlight was that this was not their intention (i.e., they had not meant to break their parents' trust) but it had to do with where they were and the social pressure of being around peers who were having a good time drinking more ... One girl also admitted that if she drank the two drinks she was given too quickly, she was much more likely to drink more due to her feeling a little more disinhibited
• In some cases, when parents provide low-alcohol drinks to their children, these are traded to younger teens and stronger alternatives are obtained, usually bottles of spirits.  The young men wanted to make it clear that when parents insisted on providing low-alcohol beers to 16-year-olds, they were rarely, if ever actually drunk. The girls said that it was a similar story for young women with low-alcohol pre-mixed spirits. Amongst those groups of teens who drank spirits, alcohol provided by parents was usually on-sold or traded to younger partygoers

The one thing I could not get agreement on was around the 'messages' that teenagers were likely to pick-up from their parents should they decide to provide them with alcohol. As far as these young people were concerned, the message they would be getting was that their parents trusted them enough to give them a couple of drinks. The problem was that they all admitted that they had broken that trust at some time or another and were likely to do it again. As much as trust is incredibly important in a parent-teen relationship, so is safety. Research evidence suggests that when we follow-up teens who are given alcohol by their parents the only real message that they takeaway from the experience is 'my parents gave me alcohol'. They don't report that it made for a more trusting relationship with their parent or that it taught them to drink more responsibly.

Most importantly, when these five young people were asked what other information their parents had ever given them when the alcohol was handed over to them on a Saturday night, there was almost no response. Most agreed that one or both of their parents had probably said something like "Be careful" or "Now you know that we trust you" as they got out of the car or left the house, alcohol in hand, but not one of them could remember an actual example of that type of conversation. All of these teens had, at one time or another, been provided alcohol by their parent and not one of them could think of one safety message that had ever been discussed ...

At some point you are going to have to trust your teen to do the 'right thing' around alcohol, but are you actually able to trust them to always make good choices and not make mistakes - of course not! Trust is vital in a positive parent-teen relationship but when it comes to your child's safety, it's not just that simple ...

Read More »

Why do parents lie to other parents? How can you keep your teen safe when those you trust to look after them don't always tell the truth?

You would expect that when you contact a parent hosting a party and ask specific questions about what will and won't be happening at that event that you would get an honest answer. As I am often told, this just simply isn't always the case!

I've talked about this issue a number of times before but since the beginning of the year I have heard from a number of Mums and Dads who allowed their teen to go to a party based on information they received from the host parents, only to find out later that what they had been told was completely untrue. Now, it is important to acknowledge that as far as alcohol is concerned, if young people want to get it into a party they are usually going to find a way, no matter what parents try to do. So if you have been told that the hosts are going to not allow alcohol at an event and then find out that one or more of the invitees has got drunk, it's important to remember that parents can only do their best ... That said, if you have been told that there will be bag searches or active supervision at a party, that is exactly what should happen. There is simply no excuse for hosts of a teen party telling an outright lie to parents of invitees. I have written about the following case in the past but it is well worth revisiting ...

A number of years ago I received an email from a distressed mother (let's call her Jane) who felt as though she had nowhere else to turn and simply wanted someone to tell her that what she was feeling was valid and absolutely warranted. The message has been edited down but the gist of the story is as she sent it through ...

"I have a 15 year-old daughter who is wonderful. She is now being regularly asked to attend parties and gatherings and having heard you speak a number of times at parent nights I allow her to go as long as I contact the host parents and make sure that I feel she is going to be safe ... Up to a month ago I have never had any problems - my daughter certainly doesn't like me calling but she knows that is the only way she is going to go so she is willing to put up with it. She was recently invited to a 16th birthday party at a friend's house (a friend I had never really heard her mention before - that should have set alarm bells ringing!) and I did my regular 'Mum thing' and asked for a phone number to call. When I finally got a number (the day before the party) I made the call and asked the questions. Will you be at the party? Will there be alcohol available? What time does it start and finish? All the usual stuff to which I got all the right answers, although thinking back on it, the mother did sound very stand-offish and didn't thank me for calling, which I nearly always get when I make contact.

I dropped my daughter off outside the house and watched her go inside and then drove off feeling pretty confident that I had done all the right things. Two hours later I had a phone call from her. She was in quite a state and wanted to be picked up (with a number of her friends) because the party had gotten completely out of control. I raced over and collected them, a number of them in tears, and found out that although I had asked specifically if the parents were going to be at the house and monitoring the party, they weren't. Instead they had left the party in the hands of their 19-year-old son who had invited a whole pile of his friends over. Alcohol was flowing (even though, once again, I had asked if alcohol was going to be available) and the police had been called. My daughter and her friends were terrified.

A couple of days later, after I had calmed down, I called the mother who I had spoken to before the party to let her know how upset I was that she had lied to me. I was told by her to "loosen up" and that there was no harm done and that she was the one who should be angry as it was her house that was trashed! She then hung up on me. Although the school was supportive when I called them they said there was nothing they could do - what happens on a Saturday night is not their issue. And even though my daughter's friends' parents were as angry as I was when I dropped them off on the night, they have told me just to let it go. I even contacted the local police and asked if there was anything they could do and although they didn't say it in so many words, once again, I was made to feel as though I was over-reacting and that this type of thing was 'normal'.

Is this normal and am I over-reacting? Is it truly okay for a parent to lie to me when I call to find out what a party will be like? I want my daughter to have fun and party with her friends but at 15 I need to know she is safe and my trust in people has now been well and truly destroyed. What do you think?"

Of course Jane was not over-reacting - if this had happened to me I would have been furious! As I said to Jane in my response, thank god she had a daughter who felt confident enough to make the phone call to ask to be picked up. Who would ever think it was appropriate to leave a 19-year-old young man to look after a girl's 16th birthday party? So many things could have gone wrong - there's issues around an ability to supervise appropriately, alcohol supply and all the risks associated with that and then of course the possibility of sexual assault.

Making that call to host parents in an attempt to find out what will be happening at a party can be extremely difficult. Your teen doesn't want you to do it ("You'll shame me forever!"), it's never easy to 'cold-call' someone you don't know and ask them questions that may seem to them as though you're questioning their parenting practices and, let's be honest, do you really have the time and energy in your busy life? It boils down to safety though - if you want to do your best to make sure your child is as safe as possible - you need to make the call! If you're going to 'bite the bullet' and do this, I believe you should never ask anymore than three questions (you don't want to turn it into the Spanish Inquisition!), plan and write them down and ensure you let your teen know what you are going to ask (there should be no surprises for them!). My suggestions for questions are as follows:

• What time does it start and what time does it finish?
• Will you be there and will you be actively supervising?
• How will you be handling the alcohol issue?

Jane did just that and she was lied to ... that's appalling behaviour on the other mother's part! It's sad but I continue to hear stories like this one from around the country where parents try to do the right thing and make the call and then get lied to ... Why would a parent lie to another about a party they are hosting? Is it that they simply want to appease the person on the other end of the phone and truly believe that nothing bad is going to happen and the parent calling will never find out about the lie? If they thought that what they were doing was right, why wouldn't they just tell the truth, justify their decisions and then allow a parent to choose whether to allow their child to attend or not? Or do they so desperately want to be their child's friend that they're willing to lie to others to ensure that as many people turn up as possible and damn the consequences? I'd love to know the psychology behind such behaviour because once you know the reason why they do it, maybe we could address it more effectively.

As already said, the only reason you are trying to access this information is to ensure you can make an informed decision about your child's safety. The good news is that as appalling as some parents' behaviour can be, many of our teens (like Jane's daughter) are able to identify when things are not right and respond appropriately, i.e., 'this is not a 'safe space', I need to call my Mum and get out of here'. As always, it comes down to the type of relationship you have with your child. Is it open and honest and do you have the type of 'connection' that ensures they feel comfortable enough to make that call when faced with this type of situation?

I totally get Jane's frustration - she was angry because even though she did everything she could, her daughter was put into a situation that was potentially dangerous and she can't find anyone to take responsibility for that. She trusted another mother to tell her the truth and then she was lied to - that's  hard to deal with. Sadly for her daughter, it most probably took a very long time before she was able to trust another parent again. The most important thing a parent can do in this type of situation is be thankful that nothing terrible happened - as I said to Jane, no-one was hurt. Grab that fact and hold it very close - so many things could have gone wrong but didn't.

Unfortunately, parents such as the one that Jane encountered are often 'serial offenders' they do this kind of thing again and again. This is shameful behaviour - they are not only putting their own children at risk but other people's as well ...

Read More »

What about France? Don't European parents provide alcohol to teens? They don't have problems with underage drinking ... or do they?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a UNSW study that found no evidence to support that parental supply of alcohol to children will 'teach them to drink responsibly' or be protective in any way. Instead, it found that this was actually "associated with subsequent binge drinking, alcohol-related harm(s) and symptoms of alcohol use disorder". Not surprisingly, some parents had huge issues with this and I received a number of emails and messages from Mums and Dads who refused to accept the findings. Now, as I wrote at the time, what you do with your child is your business and if you believe that it is appropriate to give your child a glass of wine with a meal then go ahead ... all I am trying to do is make it clear that if you are doing that because you believe there is evidence to say that this practice is likely to make your son or daughter a more responsible drinker in the future, there isn't!

A number of people who wrote to me raised the issue of France in their argument, usually going along the lines of that in that country there were few, if any, laws around underage drinking. There didn't need to be as the French had a very 'mature' attitude towards alcohol, i.e., it was often introduced in the home from a very early age, was almost always only consumed with a meal and the French did not 'drink to get drunk'. So is that actually the case? Do the French not have laws around underage drinking and has their 'laissez-faire' attitude towards alcohol protected them from the problems we have seen in countries like Australia?

In actual fact, France does have a legal drinking age, raising it from 16 to 18 years in 2009. It was raised, as the government at the time were quoted as saying, "to reduce a dangerous addiction among youths", with both drinking and purchasing ages being brought into line with most European countries. In the early 2000s, the French still viewed binge drinking as a phenomenon largely limited to those from the UK and northern Europe, particularly some of the Scandinavian countries. Then the situation began to change with the term 'le binge drinking' increasingly being used to describe the behaviour of French young people. Between 2004 and 2008 France saw the number of children under 15 admitted to hospital for drunkenness increase by 50% and alcohol-related hospital admissions for those under 24 rose by 50%.

In 2015, a study found that France's alcohol consumption had halved in the past 20 years, with just 18% of French men and 6% of women drinking on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the news was not so good for parents with 11.2% of 17-year-olds reporting drinking alcohol more than 10 times every month. Another study conducted in 2014 found that 59% of 11 to 12-year-olds had consumed alcohol, whilst 60% of 15 to 17-year-olds had been drunk at least once, and 79% of 16-year-olds claimed to have consumed alcohol within the last month. In addition, according to the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD), a study of over 96,000 students across the European Union member states, spirits had become the favoured drink of French students.

To many French people this simply does not make sense - they have always had a sense of pride regarding their 'mature and sophisticated' relationship with alcohol. Many have chosen to blame the influence of visitors from other countries, particularly the UK, as causing this cultural change and that certainly may have something to do with it, but experts tend to believe that global factors such as the increasing influence of alcohol advertising and the growing link between alcohol and sport are also important things to consider.

If it isn't France that people bring up, it's Italy or Greece! What they are usually referring to is the 'Mediterranean Model', i.e., introducing alcohol to a child in a family setting with a meal. In 2009, Time Magazine wrote an article on the changing face of underage drinking in Italy. It reported that Milan had recently imposed a strict new local law that, for the first time in Italy, meant that parents of anyone underage caught drinking and anyone who supplied someone under 16 with alcohol would face punishment, with a fine of up to $700. This was as a result of a study that had found 34% of 11-year-olds have "problems with alcohol". Another national study had also found that 63% of underage youths get drunk on weekends, with boys consuming an average of four drinks per drinking session and girls consuming six.

When it comes to Greece, the ESPAD provides some frightening data regarding the alcohol use of young people from that country. In Greece, the study found that teens drink their first bottle of beer or wine at 12-13, before quickly moving to spirits (vodka, tequila, whisky) by the age of 14-15. In addition, around 9% of teenage boys and 5% of teenage girls get drunk for the first time at 13-years-old. The introduction of a glass of wine with a meal doesn't seem to be being too protective there!

Although many find it hard to accept, it is important to acknowledge that even in countries where the 'Mediterranean Model' once appeared to have been successful there are growing issues when it comes to underage drinking. Now do these countries have as significant a problem as others, including Australia? Maybe not, but to throw France, Greece and Italy into someone's face and say "these countries have got the whole underage drinking issue in hand" is just plain stupid!

Now some of you maybe asking yourself, but doesn't this guy usually go on about the growing numbers of non-drinkers amongst our young people? What about them? Well, they're certainly there - in fact, across the world we are seeing growing numbers of young people who choose not to drink, however, if they are drinkers, they are often highly problematic drinkers. They start earlier, drink a lot when they drink, which is often regularly and they are more likely to choose high-strength alcohol products such as spirits. What the research seems to be saying is that providing young people alcohol, even in cultures that traditionally were protective, does not seem to always have the desired effect ... What we are learning is that although family influence is incredibly important, there are so many other external pressures that bombard our kids from a very early age, most of which are almost impossible to control, that the potentially positive messages you are trying to send can become confused. It would appear that although you may be attempting to teach them to drink responsibly by providing them sips or a drink with a meal, what they are actually picking up from your actions (even in countries like France!) is simply 'Mum and Dad give me alcohol and they support my drinking ...' - most probably not the message you intended!

References:
EMCDDA/ESPAD(2016). ESPAD Report 2015 — Results from the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs. Lisbon.

Israely, J. (2009). Italy Starts Cracking Down on Underage Drinking, Time, July 29, https://ift.tt/2pAfheu

Read More »