PARENTS OF TEENS:
Encouraging Smart Choices
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Young people can be reckless and impulsive. Even smart teens with a good head on their shoulders will sometimes make impulsive, poor choices. Peer pressure can overcome their good sense.
As parents, we hope our kids will learn from others’ mistakes, but that’s rarely the case. Here’s one mother’s story:
Our 15-year-old daughter Alisa wasn’t drinking the night she was killed—the autopsy showed that—but she was subject to peer pressure. She and her friends chose to ride with an underage drunk driver.
After her death, Alisa’s older sister went to the high school and talked about the dangers of drinking. The kids were devastated, but two months later they were out partying and drinking again.
A boy named Tony who had waited each morning with Alisa at the school bus stop was heartbroken by her death. He brought flowers to our house and started nagging his friends, saying, “No, you can’t drink and drive. You have to put on your seatbelt.”
Tony’s best friend said, “You’ve got to quit doing this. Nobody wants to be around you because you’re such a drag. This already happened to us, and the chance of it happening again is one in a million.”
A few weeks later, Tony got in a car with a driver impaired by alcohol, and was killed on that same road. No kidding.
It’s kids’ job to think they are immortal. They tell themselves, “It won’t happen to me.”
-- Jan Withers, Maryland
Reinforce Smart Choices
Talk to your teenager about the choices he or she will be making about alcohol.2 You might say
- “I love you and care about your well-being; that’s why I want you to learn to make smart choices.” 3
- “Underage drinking is dangerous, illegal, and against our rules. I don’t want you to do it.”
- “’Everyone else is doing it’ is not a good reason. You are not everyone else; you are unique and precious to me.” 2
- “Beware of other kids who are drinking. They make poor choices and will put you in danger.”
Tips for helping your teen think logically
CLICK HERE FOR REFERENCES
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance — United States, 2007.” Surveillance Summaries, June 6, 2008 / Vol. 57 / No. SS-4. Read more
2. Prevention Research Center, The Pennsylvania State University. (2005) Parents as a Resource: Talking with Adolescents About Alcohol.
3. Resnick, Michael D, et al. “Protecting Adolescents From Harm: Findings From the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health,” JAMA, September 10, 1997. Vol 278, No. 10. Read more
