There is perhaps no question parents ask more often about their child's behavior than, “Is this normal?” When that child reaches adolescence and the prospect of drug or alcohol use becomes real, this question gains new urgency, and for good reason.
It's one thing to appreciate on an intellectual level that part of what it means to be an adolescent is to rebel against authority and to take risks - including experimentation with contraband and illegal substances such as alcohol. It's another thing entirely to be awake and worried at 3 a.m. as you hear your 16-year-old fumble with the house keys, stumble up the steps and shut the door to his room with an awkward, uncontrolled slam. Will this continue to happen, you wonder? Will a pattern develop? Will he do something reckless, get in trouble, get hurt, or even get killed?
In some senses, underage drinking is “normal” in our culture. It is a common practice and understood as a rite of passage for adolescents.
This perception is not only prevalent among teens themselves, but also reflected in movies and other media and borne out by the statistics. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 45 percent of teens have consumed alcohol at least once and 26 percent consume alcohol in an episodic or binge pattern.
This attitude is nothing new; certainly, as parents, many of us can point to our own past drinking behaviors - legal or not - which we naturally matured out of and left behind, completely unscathed.
The bottom line, however, is that underage drinking is illegal and potentially dangerous, both in the short and long term. Medical research shows (and certainly parents' own experiences can confirm) that the adolescent's brain is underdeveloped and therefore particularly vulnerable to the effects of alcohol.
In particular, the cerebral cortex - the area of the brain that controls thought, planning, judgment, moral reasoning and other “executive functions” - is nowhere near full maturation. In the meantime, teens have a much higher tolerance for risk and much less ability to appreciate long-term consequences.
Their consumption of alcohol, which is itself disinhibitory (meaning it allows the user to overcome psychological inhibitions), can lead to a slew of risky actions, including unsafe sex, shoplifting, simply not knowing when to stop, and dangerous driving behaviors.
The CDC has found that 11 percent of high school students have driven under the influence, and 29 percent have ridden in a car with someone driving under the influence. And according to a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, alcohol is a factor in approximately 41 percent of all motor vehicle accidents and responsible for the death of 5,000 teens annually. The same study found that of the three leading causes of death for those ages 15 to 24 - vehicle crashes, homicide and suicide - alcohol is the leading factor.
But the teenager's use of alcohol puts him/her at greater risk not only in the moment, but also across his/her lifespan. There is a 40 percent chance of long-term alcohol dependence if a teen begins drinking at or before age 14; this percentage is 2.5 times the lifetime prevalence rate of dependence in the population overall. (This risk drops to 10 percent if drinking doesn't begin until age 20, which is 33 percent less than the lifetime prevalence rate in the population overall.) This correlation is due, in part, to the fact that alcohol (and other drugs of abuse) interfere with normal brain development.
The earlier a teenager begins drinking, the more opportunities there are for his/her use to interrupt maturation during the brain's most critical and vulnerable period of growth.
Put simply, the cerebral cortex (again, the area that controls executive functioning) is weakened. At the same time, the mid-brain, whose job it is, in essence, to say, “Yes! Go do this!” gets inappropriately rewarded and eventually corrupted.
In an ideal world, abstinence until 25 - the age at which research shows the brain is fully matured - would dramatically reduce many of the problems associated with underage drinking. But living in the real world does not mean parents are powerless. So what can you do to protect your child's health and safety?
The answer is to embrace a risk management strategy that mitigates risk factors (anything that potentially increases the likelihood of drug and alcohol use) and brings protective factors (anything that potentially decreases the likelihood of drug and alcohol use) to bear in the child's life.
Risk factors to pay attention to include: parental use of drugs and alcohol, familial discord and divorce, a history of learning problems in school, being adopted, and mood disorders, including depression, anxiety and bipolar disorders.
Mitigating means talking to your child about whatever factor or constellation of factors he or she may be struggling with, and also seeking the help of professional resources outside the family for objective evaluation and treatment of these issues sooner rather than later.
On the other side of the ledger, protective factors include keeping your teenager involved in extracurricular activities, spending time together as a family - not only at the oft-invoked dinner table, but also through various recreational activities - and finding ways for you and your child to get educated together about drugs and alcohol.
The importance of the parents' willingness to discuss the risks of underage drinking cannot be overstated. The common fear that talking about something is more likely to make it happen is patently unjustified.
In fact, not talking about this issue leaves the teen in a position of having to learn (or get misinformed) on his/her own.
There are well-established developmental and biological reasons for adolescents to separate from their parents and increasingly identify with their peers. However, parents still play a hugely important role in helping their child make good decisions.
source: auburnpub
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