Alcohol Awareness Month
By
MADD
|
April 3, 2013
|
Filed in:
Power of Parents
,
Underage Drinking
April is Alcohol Awareness Month, which is one of the reasons why we chose April 21st as PowerTalk 21 day, the national day for parents and teens to talk about alcohol.
Of all the dangers teens face, underage drinking is among the worst. Compared with non-drinking classmates, teens who drink are more likely to:
- Die in a car crash
- Get pregnant
- Flunk school
- Be sexually assaulted
- Become an alcoholic later in life
- Take their own life through suicide
The longer a teen waits to start drinking, the safer he or she will stay. Both parents and teens can be part of the solution.
Parents play an important role in a teen’s decision to drink. In fact, 74% of teens say their parents are the number one influence on their decision to drink.
MADD knows that informed, caring parents can make a difference, and we’re here to help. Download the latest version of the Power of Parents handbook for tips and tools to help you start the potentially lifesaving conversation about alcohol with your teens. And, we are giving away an iPad to one lucky parent who downloads the handbook during April. You can also find additional tips and expert resources at madd.org/powerofparents.
We also have a Power of You(th) booklet available. This research-based booklet for teens helps you take a stand against underage drinking, for both yourself and your friends.
Together, we can prevent underage drinking and help teens meet their full potential.
Announcing the Power of You(th) Video Contest Winner
By
MADD
|
February 27, 2013
|
Filed in:
Underage Drinking
Last Fall, we asked teens across the country to participate in the second annual Power of You(th)® video contest to prove that underage drinking is not cool, and we’re excited to share with you the winning video:
Congratulations to 17-year-old Jason Girouard from Brimfield, MA for creating a great video that shows how teens can influence each other to not drink underage. Jason’s video was selected from numerous entries submitted by teens across the country, based on its creativity, quality and overall underage drinking prevention message.
The video contest is part of MADD’s Power of You(th) program, sponsored by State Farm®, to empower teens to say no to alcohol and never get in a car with someone who’s been drinking. The program also includes a teen-focused booklet, called The 411 on Teen Drinking, which provides teens with this information and more, empowering them to make good choices and resist alcohol. Get the teen booklet now.
New Data Shows Continued Decrease in Underage Drinking
By
MADD
|
December 20, 2012
|
Filed in:
Power of Parents
,
Underage Drinking
Data recently released by Monitoring the Future, one of the leading surveys on teen drug use, shows good news in the fight against underage drinking. For the first time since the survey began in 1991, fewer than 30% of 8th graders had drunk underage. Since we launched the Power of Parents® program in 2010, drinking among 8th graders has declined by 19% and drinking among 10th graders has declined by seven percent.
The news is not all good, however. Drinking among 12th graders went up in the 2012 survey. More than half of all high school seniors (54%) have been drunk and over half of those have been drunk in the past month. In addition, almost one out of every four 12th graders reported binge drinking in the past two weeks.
This shows the need to have not just one talk with your children about alcohol, but rather to have an ongoing conversation. As your child grows, they will know more, have different questions and face more difficult pressures. MADD has research based tools available that can help get these lifesaving conversations started. Use our Power of Parents handbook to talk with you teens about not drinking alcohol until they are 21 and never getting in the car with someone who has been drinking, or visit the parent section of our website to get more tips and expert resources for talking with your kids about alcohol.
Study Shows Effects of Teen Alcohol Use
By
MADD
|
December 19, 2012
|
Filed in:
Power of Parents
,
Underage Drinking
A study recently published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research shows that teens who drink underage show signs of breakdown in the brain's wiring system.
The brain has two broad types of tissue, known as gray matter and white matter. The gray matter can be seen as the brain's information-processing centers, while the white matter is like the wiring connecting those centers. Using brain scans of 92 teenagers, researchers found that kids who regularly drank showed negative changes in the brain's white matter over 18 months. The impacts of those changes in white matter can prevent parts of the brain from talking to each other as effectively, hurting memory, attention, and mental processing speed.
With regular, repeated, heavy use throughout adolescence and young adulthood, these effects may become more noticeable and consequential. You can read more about the study here.
Fortunately, parents can have a strong influence on whether your teens drink — nearly three out of four kids say their parents are the leading influence on their decisions about drinking. We encourage parents take advantage of the holiday break, to talk with their teens about alcohol. Having intentional and ongoing conversations with your teen about alcohol can be lifesaving, but we also know it can be difficult. That’s why we created Power of Parents®— a research based program that has been shown to reduce underage drinking when you read the parent handbook and talk with your teen about drinking. You can download the parent handbook here.
Winter 2012 MADDvocate
By
MADD
|
December 17, 2012
|
Filed in:
Drunk Driving
,
General
,
Underage Drinking
,
Victim Services
The Winter issue of MADDvocate is available. Read the latest issue of our online magazine that is helping survivors survive.
