Troubled Teens Resources

Teen help does not mean supervising your teenagers’ “kegger”. Teen help does not mean collecting all the car keys at your kid’s pool party and then going inside to settle in for a movie. What should be patently obvious is apparently a point of contention in the ongoing battle to prevent teens at risk from drinking.

Many parents feel that allowing their teens access to alcohol under controlled conditions will teach them responsibility. However, the prevalent word from the experts is that is just a comforting, but spurious notion.

“In many cases parents do this under the false assumption that they are protecting their kids. They make the assumption that they won’t drink elsewhere and that’s not true,” says Robert Lindsey, director of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.

In addition to drunken-driving accidents that too often end tragically, teen-drinking parties can spawn sexual assaults, stabbings, brawling and neighborhood vandalism. “We all know we’re fooling ourselves if we think underage drinking is fine,” says Stacy Saetta, a legal policy researcher at the Center for the Study of Law and Enforcement Policy in Felton, Calif. “Simply to say it’s a rite of passage isn’t good enough.” Even when parents think they are doing the right thing by gathering car keys of partiers, “kids still get away and still drive drunk,” she said. “These parties are very, very dangerous.”

(source)
(via Save Our Youth)

Teen crisis intervention programs developed across the nation represent millions of dollars and man hours dedicated to diverting teens from the often fatal consequences of underage drinking. Parents who fail to see the immensity of the problem are failing their teenagers first and foremost.