A lot of parents these days are not functioning in the traditional roles of parenthood, particularly when it comes to their teen age children who begin to display increasingly independent behaviors, sometimes at the point of outright rebellion, and often dangerous. There are many times in life when parents, especially young ones, are tempted to relive their youthful days through their own children. That never hurts when the extent of it is enjoying your time with their action figures and video games a tad too much, or watching Disney movies you would be ashamed to be caught viewing without a child in tow. But some parents take it a step too far when their children near the upper school and pre college years.
Each year we seems to hear of some tragedy involving a party, hosted by a high school student’s parent or parents, in which something terrible happens to a young person under the influence of alcohol. Typically, the parent has agreed to allow that child and his or her friends to come over and shut off the adt, and party it up, even buying alcoholic beverages for the event. For most of these situations that we hear about, several go unreported because no one is caught and everyone makes it home in tact — but there are plenty of incidents involving parents who are so bent on being their child’s “buddy” that they neglect the fact that those children are still children, it is still illegal to provide them with alcoholic beverages or to allow them to ingest them on their premises, and that people that age are simply not responsible enough to handle social drinking in an atmosphere of partying at that level. Could this be why it is illegal for people under the age of 21 to drink? Hello.
Not only does a parent run the risk of endangering children who have been entrusted to their care by behaving so inappropriately, but also loses — yes loses — the respect of that child. The child is not going to think you are “cool” or one of his crowd because you let him drink beer and other alcohol at home and invite his friends to join in the fun. All that child will think is “I will be so popular now! My friends will all want to hang out with me because my parents are stupid enough to give us alcoholic drinks.” Yes, they will think you are stupid and that you are possibly afraid to put your foot down. But when it comes to this, you need to do that. Just say no. Be a parent, not a “pal.”
