Teenage Drinking - A hard no? Or can this be done responsibly?

[Anonymous]

Blacking out (multiple times!) sophomore year is pretty early. Ditto having friends whose parents allow drinking in the house…I would be concerned about this friend group

[Anonymous]

"This is our approach. Just a few weeks ago my 16 yo drove to her friends house and they had a few drinks. Her friends were encouraging her to drive home but she called us instead. My husband went to pick her up and said nothing other than “you made an excellent decision and we are proud of that.”
If a teen wants to drink, they will. I just want her to be safe if she’s doing it."

And this is why I will never understand why parents let kids drive themselves around at night for socializing. Best thing I ever did was live close to a Metro stop. There is absolutely no reason for kids who live within the Beltway to be driving themselves on a Friday or Saturday night. Uber, mom chauffeur, whatever. But never a teen driver.

[Anonymous]

I am not at all equating the 2. The OP asked about giving her daughter freedom to go out and some people are actually suggesting she stay home for the next two years. I don’t in any way condone it but I would rather know what’s going on. if you just punish your kid they will likely never tell you again and continue the same behavior. Drinking and driving is a hard no. And I know that I took the right approach with my daughter because she learned her drinking limits in high school and is now a very responsible drinker in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a father who only has sons. I would let them drink but if they ever got drunk drunk they would be in trouble. I would not let my daughter drink, if I had one. IMO there is no such thing as a safe space for a drunk girl

Are you not concerned that it's the drunk boys that are responsible for the space not being safe? Your message suggests that you think that the girls should behave more responsibly than the boys (I assume to guard against sexual assault, but please correct me if I'm wrong in that assumption). It reads as though you don't believe boys are responsible for stopping themselves or their friends from assaulting girls.

[Anonymous]

I have many addicts in my family and have done a ton of research related to it. Blacking out is a strong sign of future addiction issues. For a teen to be blacking out, this is a bad sign. You need to sit her down and explain the dangers. No drinking is safe for her. You may think that’s extreme but if you want her to live….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many clueless and judgemental replies as usual. I love the hard no. I have a very open relationship with my kids and I know they drink and punishing them and prohibiting does not work. My kids have lots of friends who get black out drunk and their parents have no idea. So get off your high horse and if you’re going to reply do it thoughtfully, without judgement and with some compassion. My child came home extremely drunk a handful of times in high school and while it was very upsetting to me I am now glad she did it while under my roof and with her close friends who would not take advantage of her. This is how she learned her limit. She is now a junior in college and a very responsible drinker. Unlike many of her friends who had no freedom in high school and had to sneak around. To the OP you are getting your daughter professional help which is great. And I think the fact that she reached out to you for help is a great sign. My feeling is she has to learn to be in the world and to navigate social settings with alcohol. I don’t think forbidding her to be social is beneficial to her now or in the long run. Over time, she will learn if she can drink in moderation but in any case she needs and sounds like wants a social like. The downside to not allowing that will prob be worse for her mental health.

I have a very open relationship with my DS on every subject under the sun. IF he drank, he would end up telling me. He knows I wouldnt be happy but I also wouldnt kill him (unless he did something stupid like get into a car with someone else who had been drinking). That being said, having a hard no on drinking/vaping/drugs does not mean he has no freedom and the fact that you equate the two is weird. There is a difference between freedom/trust with being unsafe/dangerous. From my experience, teens can't just drink one drink when they are altogether in a situation where they actually found a way to get alcohol. They need to drink it all, drink it fast and get rid of the evidence.

Signed, teen who drank way too much in high school and went to tons of parties where drinking in excess took place and is damn lucky nothing happened to them.

Lol. You are the worst kind of delusional parent - a cocky, self-righteous one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not permissive at all. Realistic and understand the world we live in and the importance of my kids feeling like they can talk to me and not have to sneak around like your kids are probably doing. My parents were extremely strict and that was not helpful to me. I just find it laughable how clueless people are. Wait until your kids are grown up and tell you all the stuff they did behind your back.

You're continuing to not respond to data people have presented you that vast majority of kids do not drink at all. Look at the link people sent you. 93 percent of 12th graders report not binge drinking.

Come up with something coherent in response other than everyone else is clueless.

[Anonymous]

How is this even a question? Hard no.

[Anonymous]

The hard no people confuse me. What does that even mean? At actual parties (not talking about a few kids hanging out at someone's house) somebody there will have alcohol available. Do the hard no people forbid their kids from attending? Do they not get to go to the prom after parties because somebody else will bring a bottle?

The last thing I'd want to do is absolutely forbid my kid to drink alcohol because when he succumbed to being a normal teen and then had an safety issue come up, he'd be totally afraid to come to me for help. And I would never forgive myself if he drove himself home drunk/buzzed and hurt someone, all because I chose to make drinking into a black and white issue for him.

How about pushing alcohol safety? Let's show them what responsible drinking looks like. That includes discouraging the binge drinking that kids tend to do when they secretly drink in completely unsupervised settings. I have a friend who is extreme about her drinking. She won't order a glass of wine with a dinner in a restaurant at 6:30 because she has to drive home at the end of the meal at 8 pm. I think this sends the wrong message to young people. Better to model how to drink safely and moderately. They shouldn't think it's either you get shit-faced drunk or else you never let a drop of wine pass your lips within 12 hours of driving.

I didn't do this, but part of me wanted to have my kid drink 3 shots and 3 beers within about 3 hours just so he could see what that felt like to puke from being drunk, and how awful he felt the next morning and into the afternoon. In real life, people learn the lesson that this is too much little by little. Or else they keep drinking because they're using alcohol for problematic reasons (avoiding some painful issue, alcohol dependency, etc...) Usually, once you've been sick, you try to avoid that again unless you've got unresolved issues.

The summer before he left for college, my oldest child came to me one morning and said he felt awful because he'd had way too much Tito's vodka from his friend's dad's liquor cabinet the night before. I told him to remember that moment and what it felt like because there would be a time at college when he needed to use the entire weekend to write a paper or study for a final. If he drank as much as he just had the night before on a Friday night, he would be incapable of getting his college work done on time. Not sure if that stuck with him.

[Anonymous]

80% of college students drink and 50% binge drink. If my child is going to choose to experiment with alcohol which 80% do I would rather they do it under my roof and be able to talk openly about it and not have them go crazy in college. I am not saying it has to be in 10th grade but at some point in high school. Your kid just does it without you knowing and god knows what they do in college. Is that better ?

[Anonymous]

You have to just ignore all the dcum on their soap box. It’s honestly not worth engaging. Wait until their children go crazy in college because of the “hard no”

[Anonymous]

Wow! There are some real problems with how people here are interpreting that Fairfax County report findings. In fact, they themselves seem to be reporting things incorrectly.

97% of students have not had any binge drinking episodes over the past two weeks.

Binge drinking is defined as consuming five or more alcoholic drinks in a row in the past two weeks.
Ninety-three percent of 12th graders report not binge drinking. (This time they aren't qualifying it with every two weeks. But given how few freshman drink compared to seniors, there's no way that this can be reconciled so that the 97% number is correct.)

When you realize that they're lumping in freshman with seniors (and the info is only collected every two years) these numbers are not very informative.

The poor quality of this report makes me question how accurately they gathered this data.

[Anonymous]

As an alcoholic who never wasn’t an alcoholic until 32, this is scary. I honestly feel like I only made it through college and partying because I only drank on weekends. If alcoholism has started so young, that’s not easy. I did drink as a teen and it was nbd. My college drinking was also nbd. Drinking by myself when I couldn’t handle parenting was what sent me over the edge. I would never allow myself to take painkillers from a doctor (I just had surgery and definitely said no when offered) and I have to monitor my drinking weekly. (I do not overconsume anymore but one you reach this point, the *want* never goes away)

I would not draw a hard line for her. Instead I would work on her knowing her limits, stopping, not drinking outside of parties, lots of emotional work in building up your own happiness. Hard lines just mean that there’s no communication.

And she might not call you to pick her up when she’s been drinking if you have a hard line. You have to reiterate that you’ll always support her and ask how you can help her.

[Anonymous]

Adolescent drinking is strongly associated with benign breast disease and invasive breast cancer. The notion of teaching "responsible drinking" with a known carcinogen during a time that breast tissue is most susceptible is laughable. We know this, and we should ensure we give our kids the best chance at long term health possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have many addicts in my family and have done a ton of research related to it. Blacking out is a strong sign of future addiction issues. For a teen to be blacking out, this is a bad sign. You need to sit her down and explain the dangers. No drinking is safe for her. You may think that’s extreme but if you want her to live….

Np. Plenty of us blacked out and didn’t become alcoholics.

I did become an alcoholic and never once blacked out. I actually never threw up either.