Holding
On, Letting Go
Graduation Season Brings Risk and Reward
by
Stephen Wallace, M.S.Ed.
April 3, 2006
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.
Stephen Wallace, national chairman and chief executive officer of SADD, Inc. (Students Against Destructive Decisions), has broad experience as a school psychologist and adolescent counselor. For more information about SADD, call toll-free 877-SADD-INC. The SADD/Liberty Mutual Teens Today research report can be found at www.sadd.org and www.libertymutualinsurance.com
© Summit Communications Management Corporation
2006 All Rights Reserved
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