Parent Meeting - Teens and Alcohol Consumption

Written by Walt Mueller

Invitations: Your teenager is being told that beer consumption is a necessary ingredient in life's recipe for fun, acceptance, and success. You can either buy the lie that your teenager will never feel the pressure, or you can equip your teen to stand strong. Join other parents of teenagers to talk about strategies for helping your teen practice abstinence. (Provide information regarding time and place.)

Prior to the Meeting: Make 10 percentage posters from 10% through 100%. Place the posters in order on a focal wall. It would be best to have enough room between the posters so that the parents could stand around the percentages represented.

Opening: Children and teens who watch televised sporting events, attend college, or professional games are hit with the never-ending blitz of beer ads presenting beer consumption as a necessary ingredient in life's recipe for fun, acceptance, and success. Impressionable because of their age and developmental process, many kids don't know how to filter these messages and wind up swallowing the lies.

Use the following questions to get parents to open up about teens and alcohol. Ask the parents to move to the percentage posters that best represent their answers.

• What percent of 8th graders have consumed alcohol? (50.5)
• What percent of 10th graders have consumed alcohol? (70.1)
• What percent of 12th graders have consumed alcohol? (79.9)
• What percent of 8th graders have consumed enough alcohol to get drunk at least once in their lives? (23.4)
• What percent of 10th graders have consumed enough alcohol to get drunk at least once in their lives? (48.2)
• What percent of 12th graders have consumed enough alcohol to get drunk at least once in their lives? (63.9)
• When asked if they had consumed alcohol during the prior 30 days, what percent of 8th graders said yes? (21.5)
• When asked if they had consumed alcohol during the prior 30 days, what percent of 10th graders said yes? (39)
• When asked if they had consumed alcohol during the prior 30 days, what percent of 12th graders said yes? (49.8)
• When asked if they had consumed alcohol during the prior 30 days, what percent of college students said yes? (67)

(Statistics based on the University of Michigan's "Monitoring the Future" survey findings.)

Say: Sadly, for a growing number of teenagers, beer drinking and drunkenness isn't seen as something dangerous, risky, or wrong. Instead, it's seen as a normal teen behavior and a necessary rite of passage. These emerging attitudes are threads running through all corners of today's youth culture, including the world of our Christian kids. Don't buy the lie that your teens won't ever feel the pressure, face the temptation, or give in.

Use the following points to challenge parents to equip their teens to stand strong in the face of mounting pressure:

1. Take a look in the mirror. When it comes to alcohol consumption, what kind of lifestyle are you modeling for your teen? A code of biblical and moral conduct lived out in the home is the most powerful shaper or your teen's own spiritual values and behaviors. Does your example leave the impression that alcohol is a necessary precursor to successful social interactions or fun? Are you walking your talk?
2. Establish rules and standards. Contrary to what some people think, alcohol and drug use is relatively low among teens whose parents have set strict rules. The rules are most effective when parents monitor their teen's behavior and enforce those rules with rewards and punishments. Your teen needs to know that underage drinking is both immoral and illegal.
3. Play "spot the lie." Instead of tuning out when the parade of beer ads begins, spend time processing the ads with your teens. Help them spot the lies and the bait advertisers use to sell them on beer consumption.

Brainstorm Solutions: Take some time at the end of the session to brainstorm ways parents can support each other and their teens in taking a stand for abstinence from alcohol. The following are suggestions to get your group started:

• Parents providing alternative activities and alcohol-free parties for prom, homecoming, and such events that may produce an increased risk of temptation
• Parents meeting the teenager's date and verbalizing the family's stand regarding the use of alcohol
• Parents who have already experienced the grief of teenagers engaging in alcohol supporting other parents who find themselves in the same boat
• Parents being willing to share with each other and talk with each other's teenagers about alcohol.

As always in addressing parents of teenagers, feel free to invite a Christian counselor or a high school counselor with a Christian worldview to assist in leading your meeting. Parents appreciate your care in bringing in professionals who can also provide additional support after the meeting. You might also provide information from Alcoholics Anonymous or other local support groups. There may be parents in your group who need help with addiction.