by TBAcademics

Created on: April 19, 2008

Children need boundaries. Children need structure. Children need credible information, and positive examples of responsible behavior, in order to later make good choices. Children DO NOT need experimentation, simply because in this day and age, the risks are too dangerous. First and foremost, it's important to clarify semantics. If there is, supposedly, a "responsible" way for children to consume alcohol, would this translate into teaching your child "casual drinking"? As far as I know drinking alcohol irresponsibly is called abuse. "No-use" is simply zero tolerance, in this case, for illegal activity. Bear in mind that a minor cannot purchase alcohol, and there's a reason for this. Alcohol is a drug. As adults, it is important that in an effort to show openness, friendliness and tolerance towards our children, we don't compromise ethics and morality, in the process.

Model healthy choices for your child. With a birds eye view, as a teacher in the public school system, and perhaps, more authoritatively, the daughter of an alcoholic parent, I contend that any adolescent who would drink liquor irresponsibly isn't doing so, because they are ignorant of a right or wrong way to do it. Peer pressure deems a teenager's fundamental family values, and in many cases, common sense, obsolete- null and void, anyway. If a parent's objective is educating a child on the perils of drinking too much, the parent has sabotaged his/her own agenda once the child consumes the first sip. One sip of any drug is too much, much like one puff of a blunt (dope, weed, chronic, marijuana). For medically sound reasons, even a drag off a cigarette could have profoundly adverse affects on a child, considering every child's neurological and physiological chemistry is different. These are foreign substances, or better said, DRUGS, we're discussing. These chemicals do not create a healthy, tolerant introduction to every person's body. Besides, if the child is tempted to go overboard to impress his/her social circle, this will be done with all deliberateness, because the agenda is not to be responsible for the sake of parental approval. The agenda, parents forget, is peer acceptance and applause; therefore, the more reckless and overly-indulgent, the "cooler," the better the teen becomes.

Should parents teach their kids how to smoke weed responsibly? For those that would draw a distinction between marijuana and gin, vodka, champagne, wine or tequila, I would argue this smacks of a bit of superiority.

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