drink up

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/09/27/kid.drinking/index.html

I caught a glance of this a few days ago and thought nothing of it. It seemed yet another study showing things I already knew, but which apparently was counter-intuitive to the average joe. While there are a few debates back and forth over why kids get into drinking or smoking, here's a few dabbles on my thinking. They are restricted, forbidden to a plane of adulthood. Without a clear rite of passage into that feeling of being 'adult', something denied, even with a clear demarcation, it becomes a furious mission to do anything which remotely suggests the achievement of becoming an adult. These illicit activities are only too ready to fulfill that mission. To be fair, it is not as though adults are often prepared to burden themselves with the responsible use of such substances. But the 'protection' of children by shielding them unnecessarily from harm, as though those harms will never effect them, does not sound like a manner of encouraging responsible use. It has instead two possible outcomes. One, the child will abstain completely or, at worst, dabble and come away dissatisfied. This is the delusional outcome most parents subject themselves to and then wonder why their child is struggling in college suddenly. Or two, the child will not learn what responsibility they undertake by imbibing alcoholic beverages or inhaling more addictive substances (I include nicotine in this package), and never will until more serious consequences occur, such as death, injury, STD, arrest, etc. One of these may be a desirable alternative, but it is, without any pre-packaged sensibility of responsible behavior, unlikely.

In addition, something tagged in later in the article, "kids are going to drink anyway". Such experimentation is inherently human curiosity. We can use some sense and avoid things which we associate with danger, such as brain-damaging narcotic substances. But alcohol is no less a danger when it is not accompanied with a moderate usage or some self-control to avoid compromising situations, such as driving or unprotected sex. When teens have the option of society setting them down and trying to scare the crap out of them by warning them of their impending doom, when all around them their peers are engaged in rampant and uncontrolled experiments, what message will they take? If instead we offer, but not require, a controlled and moderate behavior leading toward healthier, and also responsible and adult behavior, we might see some better results. It is difficult however to get parents, who occasionally rally politically behind their precious children, to understand that occasionally teens will be kids, but mostly what they are trying to be is an adult. Controlling the situation in such a way as to manipulate a more beneficial outcome might be the best way to protect them and allow them to grow up at the same time.