When Parents Just Say No

By Nancy R. Gibbs

An "untold American success story." That was what President Reagan called the latest figures on teenage drug use in his State of the Union address last month. He proudly cited an annual survey by the University of Michigan's Institute of Social Research that showed a sharp drop in the number of teenagers who had used cocaine and other drugs in the past year. The President did not mention the untold American failure: despite tougher law enforcement, widespread publicity and sweeping educational campaigns, alcohol remains the drug of choice among today's high school students, and its popularity continues unabated.

The same Michigan survey revealed that 92% of high school seniors have tried booze at least once, two-thirds had taken a drink within a month of the study, and more than a third had got ripsnorting drunk within the previous two weeks. Only 26%, by comparison, believed daily drinking would threaten their health or safety -- despite ample evidence that alcohol is implicated in the majority of teenage car crashes, as well as many suicides and murders. Many states have responded by raising the drinking age to 21. Meanwhile, a growing number of parents, faced with the reality that good kids most often die of bad judgment, are wondering: Why can't we keep our children from drinking? Many are beginning to conclude that the greatest obstacles are not the kids but the permissive attitudes of all too many other parents.

Some parents view the issue of teenage drinking as an exercise in damage control. They find sterner attitudes and tactics -- imposing curfews and chaperones, smelling the breath, searching the room -- impractical and unenlightened. Many recall their own experimentation with booze and resolve to teach their children how to drink responsibly. Since fake identification cards, drive-through liquor stores and unsupervised parties are facts of adolescent life, parents are determined to walk a precarious line between tolerance and restraint, to encourage moderation and keep the lines of communication open.

"A lot of parents are grateful if their kids aren't smoking pot or snorting cocaine," says Hanne Lille-Schulstad, a Lawrence, Kans., drug-abuse specialist. Others simply hope for the best: that drunken teens will have the sense to call home for a ride or allow a sober friend to take the car keys away before they get behind the wheel. Says one Hollywood Hills, Calif., mother of a 15-year-old son: "They don't want to be seen as punitive, so they walk the line of being understanding."

Still other parents take tolerance to dangerous, and illegal, extremes. "I know parents who think nothing of buying a keg and having a party with the kids in the backyard," says John Hagan, the principal of Bowie High School in Maryland. Many parents believe supervised drinking is a safe solution. "I let my son share a beer with me once in a while," says one Manhattan father. "I think it's working. I've heard him boast to friends that he drinks with Dad, does not need to lie and sneak around for the stuff."

That sort of measured approach, however, is wearing thin for an increasing number of parents who fear that their children's safety may be jeopardized by the lax attitudes of others. Among these new hard-liners, the notion of teaching "responsible drinking" is rejected outright. Few such parents believe they can ban booze from their childrens' lives single-handed. They are working through PTAs, churches and community groups to form a united front, lay down common rules and strictly enforce them. The most popular tactic in some communities is "safe homes," designated homes where parents pledge there will be no unsupervised parties and no alcohol served to minors. Directories of families that have signed up are circulated so parents can be sure of which parties will be chaperoned.

By laying down the law, the hard-liners say, parents will give their sons and daughters the ammunition they need to fight peer pressure on their own. "Kids need help in saying no," says Lee Dogoloff of the Maryland-based American Council for Drug Education. "The single most helpful thing that parents can do is give their kids an excuse to say, 'I can't take a drink because there will be hell to pay.' " Even some adolescents agree that their parents would be wise to be less accommodating. Says a high school junior in Charlevoix, Mich.: "Tell us that drinking is bad, that it's wrong. Then if we do drink at parties we will be careful, we'll be moderate."

Even so, experts and educators who are anything but complacent about teen drinking fear that an assertion of naked parental authority invites outright rebellion. "I don't want to see a parent condoning drinking," says Principal Hagan. "But I would rather see enough communication between parent and child so that a kid can call up and say, 'Hey, I'm drunk. Come and get me, Dad.' There's a heck of a lot of peer pressure out there for kids to drink, and to get that kid to call home is one of the things we work on."

Both sides agree that the job of protecting teenagers would be far easier if no-booze attitudes were established early on, and if they were bolstered in the schools. But the primary responsibility will always lie with parents, and theirs will always be the greatest dilemma. All too often, it takes a tragedy to shatter complacency.

With reporting by Scott Brown/Los Angeles, with other bureaus