By Stephen Wallace, M.S. Ed.
High school seniors everywhere will soon embrace a graduation
season marked by pomp and circumstance, risk and reward. Staying
safe means balancing freedom with responsibility and communicating
honestly with parents. For many teens, those aren't
easy assignments.
Young people venturing closer to true independence yearn
for the freedom that parents extend based on assurances that
nurture trust. But, something funny often happens on
the way to commencement.
At graduation time, even clear-thinking teens may suddenly
feel unburdened by the strictures of law and once open channels
of communication between parent and child become clogged
with issues of trust and truth.
A successful transformation of the parent-teen relationship
from caretaker to caregiver, coach to consultant, requires
confidence in the decisions young people will make. Unfortunately,
a reality gap separating the behavior of teens from the perceptions
of parents points to a "false trust" in many
families, particularly at the intersection of decision-making
about underage drinking and drug use.
False trust is perpetuated by ignorance and complacency
on one side and, often, dishonesty on the other.
Many adults are simply unaware of the choices that teens
face every day and, more important, of the decisions they
make. Others simply look the other way, unwilling to
put a stake in a ground they neither understand nor seem
particularly concerned about.
Either way, their children lose. Absent parents truly
connected to their world, or with ones abdicating authority
over it, teens are forced to traverse the path toward independence
unaided by the communication, expectations, and consequences
they say they want. The liberating milestone of graduation
aside, parental responsibility ends neither at the end of
high school nor at the beginning of college.
To be fair, teens don't always make it easy for parents
to keep up. For example, a new Teens
Today report from
SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) and Liberty
Mutual Group, one of the nation's largest auto and home insurers,
reveals that while almost all high school students say that
it's important that their parents trust them, less
than half are completely honest about where they go and what
they do. Staggeringly high rates of adolescent drinking
and drug use often result.
Maintaining parental prerogatives when it comes to adolescent
health and safety requires communicating with teens about
important issues, establishing expectations for their behavior,
and enforcing consequences when they violate the rules – even
at graduation time.
In an Open Letter to Parents, the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and partners say, "Your
teen may be graduating soon, but that doesn't mean
it's time to let go." These groups, including
SADD, offer this advice to parents.
- Reinforce your expectations. Throughout their high
school years, you've set rules and established the
consequences for breaking them. Perhaps you've
loosened up on a few rules, like curfew. But be clear – drinking
or drug use remains unacceptable. Being an upperclassman
has privileges, but it also has responsibilities.
- Encourage your teens to make each moment count. They
only get one senior year. Let them know you don't
want them to miss out on things because of bad choices,
like drinking or drug use. One bad choice could change
their lives forever.
- Provide safe alternatives. Parties abound during
senior year. Plan chaperoned alcohol-free parties
around graduation.
ONDCP also warns parents against allowing drinking at home,
saying it sends the wrong message and may lead to other bad
choices. In fact, according Teens
Today, young people
who drink at home are significantly more likely to drink
with their friends.
For example:
- Among high school teens, those who tend to avoid alcohol
are more than twice as likely as those who repeatedly use
alcohol to say their parents never let them drink at home
(84 percent vs. 40 percent).
- More than half (57 percent) of high school teens who
report their parents allow them to drink at home, even
just on special occasions, say they drink with their friends,
as compared to just 14 percent of teens who say their parents
don't let them drink.
The fact is that teens don't need – or want – their
parents to be simply bigger versions of their friends. They
need their parents to be parents – especially during
the waning days of high school when opportunities to stray
from well-established norms regarding personal behavior abound.
Bridging the reality gap by promoting dialogue, establishing
parameters, and requiring accountability represents a meaningful
step toward letting go.
Hold on.
© Summit Communications Management Corporation
2006
All Rights Reserved
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