How do you teach your child to drink responsibly? I know, child, drink, and responsible are not words you usually hear together, but there is a need for young adults to understand how alcohol affects them. Why? Because they will not be drinking with you, at your home, and under your supervision, and when they will be out drinking they will not know when enough is enough. Knowing when to say when doesn’t work when you don’t have an idea as to when it’s “when”.
Case in point:
Thursday afternoon the newest round of American exchange students arrived. The were greeted, fed and delivered to their new homes. Thursday night they went out. One young man did not know when to say when, and ended up getting so inebriated he hurled himself through a plate glass wall, severing tendons and nerves, and liberating other important things that should usually stay inside your arms. He was rushed to the hospital and prepped for emergency surgery. His father booked an immediate flight to Prague in order to join his son – the son he had placed on a plane not even 24 hours before.
This news prompted discussion amongst the staff and I heard horror stories of drunken (American) students who came over and made some attempt to live/work/educate themselves but not nearly as efficiently or as often as they were inebriated. The ridiculous events, catastrophes and tragedies relayed were of a most sobering variety - the worst ending in a boy who fell off his balcony and is now permanently paralyzed. Not a single one of them involved a motorized vehicle. These were just drunken students walking around town or in their own home.
If you bring a child to an amusement park you tell them – as do the workers – keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times. When you teach a kid to drive you explain safety issues and the rules of the road before handing over the keys. When you drop your kids off at the movies or the mall or anywhere for the first time you run through safety issues, stranger danger… things you’ve prepared them for since they were little children. How, as responsible parents, can we prepare our children to drink – the Reagan era Just Say No is not realistic… about as realistic as Bush’s theory that abstinence only sex education means that kids won’t have sex… how do we prepare our kids for the real world?
I ask this in seriousness, not because I am worried about my child, as I think our shared life experiences have given her a rather large view on the negative impact and effect excessive alcohol use can have upon your being and your relationships with those who love you (not my usage, others). I hope that my honesty and openness for discussion – forcing discussion on topics that were not part of my upbringing – has given her awareness and security in knowing that there is no need to hesitate should any issue arise. I would like to believe that we have a certain level of openness in our communication, and that issues surrounding sex and drugs and drinking are out there on the table, yet know that with her being who she is I have little need for concern regarding those issues – at least for today.
How do we, as parents, find that safe space? How do we teach our child how to be responsible without being irresponsible?
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