One of my simple joys is listening to the radio when I am driving. Sometimes I just look forward to taking a drive anywhere so that I can listen. My two favorite things to listen to are sports talk and classic rock. Occasionally I will mix in a country station, and if someone else is with me in the car I will acquiesce and listen to a little current popular music. However, this article isn’t about some story I heard on a sports station or reminiscing about a song that took me back to my formative years. What occurred to me is the number of times I have heard stories or commercials about the influence parents have on whether or not their child drinks. Over the course of about a week, I heard a couple of news reports, and then a couple of commercials about how parents play the major role in their child’s decision to drink or not drink.
I first heard it when news reports came out about a significant drop in the drinking rate of young people age 12 to 20. According to a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in 2014 underage drinking dropped 21% and underage binge drinking saw a 26.4% decline. While this is a significant decrease, researchers are very quick to caution that underage drinking is still a major problem. Recognizing this, I still take this as a good sign, and one that shows that there is a shift in the trend of underage drinking.
There is additional good news in these most current studies, specifically in regard to drinking and driving. It appears that young people are making better choices when it comes to getting behind the wheel of a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. The most recent report showed a 54% drop in the incidence of underage youth drinking and driving. College binge drinking has dropped 13% in the past decade, but as stated above, while a very positive statistic, binge drinking on college campuses is still prevalent. Again, one needs to use a little caution, but overall these are good numbers.
However, there are a few very negative statistics related to college level students. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports that 1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries and 20% of college students struggle with an alcohol use disorder each year. Alcohol is often associated with violent behavior among college students with more than 690,000 students being assaulted by another student who has been drinking, and more than 97,000 students being victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or rape. And, about 25% of college students report diminished academic performance as a result of their drinking, including missing classes, falling behind, poor performance on exams or papers and receiving lower grades.
While we do not have all of the same data for our students at North Fayette Valley High School that is shared above, our most current data about our students comes from the Iowa Youth Survey in the same year, 2014. At the time of the survey 10% of NFV 8th graders and 24% of 11th graders said that they currently consumed alcohol on a regular basis, and 28% of 8th graders and 66% of 11th graders self reported that they had consumed alcohol at some point in their life. All of those are higher than the State of Iowa average. Even worse news is that all of those data points are higher than the previous survey done in 2013 except current users in 11th grade, which dropped 6%. One has to be careful with statistics because there are always a variety of interpretations, but one can draw the conclusion that while underage drinking is on the decline nationally, we continue to see a rise in our own communities. Students in our school are drinking more than they were before, and that bucks the national trend.
In some respects I am not surprised. There is a strong drinking culture in our communities among adults, and thus a high level of acceptance. We see a “well, they’re going to do it anyway” or “kids will be kids” attitude among many. There are also reported incidents of parents who make the decision for other parents to allow kids to drink in their homes. I have it from a good source that it is not unusual for a few parents in our community to allow their children to host parties with alcohol in their home as long as the kids who attend give them their keys. My questions for those parents is: Who gave you permission to allow my child to drink? What gives you the right to make parenting decisions for me? As a parent, I would expect a fellow parent to report to me that my child has engaged in illegal activity! This “kids will be kids” excuse, coupled with an attitude that drinking alcohol is not big deal are the biggest obstacles that exist in terms of a healthy environment for our kids.
So what can be done about this? This is where I will go back to the radio ads that I referenced in the first paragraph. The number one and by far the very best way to convince teenagers not to drink is for the parents to tell them not to drink! The number one influence in a teen’s life in terms of making a decision whether or not to drink is his/her parents! When mom and/or dad start having conversations with their child about staying away from alcohol until they are of legal age, there is a significantly better chance that they won’t drink. According to the National Institute on Health and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, parents should start talking to their child between the ages of 10 and 14, even if they are not drinking. These can be hard conversations, but most kids are not drinking at this age, and a parents’ disapproval of alcohol use is the primary reason that kids make the choice not to drink! Parents that develop strong, trusting relationships with their kids establish in their children the confidence to stand against peer pressure and to have confidence in the decisions that they make. Folks, there is no silver bullet that guarantees a child will not drink before they are of legal age. But there is one strong deterrent . . . parents are the difference in their child’s decision to drink.
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