How to teach your kids to drink responsibly: make them wait until they’re 21

 

 

Many parents believe that allowing their teens to drink under supervision will create more responsible alcohol consumers. However, recent studies have proved this line of thought to be wrong. Parents who “teach” their kids to drink, in fact, do just that. They teach and, unfortunately, prompt their teens to adopt a practice of drinking, and usually not in a very healthy manner.

An American Medical Association study, looking at both Australian and American middle schoolers, found that those teens that had begun drinking with parental supervision were more likely to have engaged in risky behavior or experienced health related issues due to the overconsumption of alcohol. Another AMA study reported data suggesting that teens with parents who condone supervised underage drinking are more likely to have trouble with alcoholism or alcohol abuse later on in life.

Because the brain is still developing into the twenties, alcohol affects teens in a much more pronounced way than it does adults. Therefore, health and research professionals encourage parents to firmly prevent their teen from drinking until the age of 21.

This, however, does not necessitate a complete ban on any alcohol in the house. The most effective action parents can take in forming responsible alcohol consumers is to model moderate drinking behaviours themselves. So go ahead and have that glass of wine with dinner, but maybe just one.

This information is taken from the NBC article “Letting teen drink under parent’s watch backfires.” To read the full article you can go to the following link: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42807670/ns/health-childrens_health/t/letting-teen#.Vh5TJk2FPIV.

 

During our last gathering we heard how the heaviest burden our young people are carrying is STRESS. The anxiety that comes with the expectation of high performance across a variety of areas (school, sports, music, etc.) is the biggest challenge facing our kids right now ... so the kids say. This article is very relevant and could open up a new conversation about what we can do to help. So, go forth, read, think, and talk. Thanks!

http://wpo.st/ORpg0

Crisis Text Line: Turning “Hot Moments to a Cool Calm” Virtually

Despite the many positives that come with advances in technology, virtual communication has been marked for years by its facilitation of cyber bullying and its tendency to perpetuate bad choices in the teen population.

Nancy Lublin, however, has found a way to turn this problem around. Initially partnering with a data scientist, an engineer, and Link2Health Solutions, Lublin of DoSomething.org founded Crisis Text Line (CTL) in the hopes of providing crisis solutions instantaneously.

CTL is based on the belief that adolescents and young adults are already comfortable with the medium of text, so reaching out for help through their phones is only natural. Thus, more individuals are likely to use this free platform in times of trouble, and CTL is able to help more people avoid harmful decisions.

The CLT crisis team consists of volunteers that are extensively trained over six weeks, partner crisis center organizations, and expert supervisors who lead these counselors. So when an individual is facing any situation, from cyber hazing to suicidal thoughts, he can text in to CTL and receive emotional support or helpful referrals anonymously and instantaneously.

CTL is upfront about not being a substitute for regular therapy or doctor’s appointments. But it is passionate about connecting those in crisis to “active listeners,” and CTL has already sent over 8,668,953 texts aiding individuals in changing their potentially risky behaviors into “safe and healthy” decisions.

To find out more about CLT, its new international division, or how you can become involved, visit crisistextline.org. To receive help from CLT text “Start” to 741-741 at any time.

Information obtained from: http://www.crisistextline.org/faq/

National Brain Expert Returns to Sewickley to Discuss Dangers of Adolescent Drug and Alcohol Use

On May 9 Dr. Duncan Clark will return to Sewickley to talk about his latest research on the impact of drug and alcohol use on the developing teenage brain. The event, sponsored by Youth Connect, runs from 10:00 am to 11:30 am at The Sewickley Presbyterian Church on Beaver and Grant Streets, and is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be generously provided by event co-sponsor HVHS Sewickley Foundation.

Dr. Clark, a psychologist and psychiatrist, presented in May 2013 to the community, providing valuable insight to both parents and students. On May 9, he will provide updates, and will participate in a Q&A with the audience. In addition to Dr. Clark, Quaker Valley Voice will present their pointers for parents. Youth Connect will also premier their first video brief, a new approach to getting information out to the community.

In 2006, Dr. Clark created the Northwest Pennsylvania Adolescent Alcohol Research Cooperative, a collaboration of the University of Pittsburgh campuses in Bradford and Pittsburgh with 40 rural primary care practitioners conducting NIH funded research to apply computer assisted clinical decision support to reduce underage drinking. With support from four NIH institutes in 2012, Dr. Clark, colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh, and scholars from four other research institutions, established the National Consortium on Alcohol & Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA, www.ncanda.org) and are now initiating the most definitive project to date to determine the effects of alcohol on adolescent brain development.     For further information about Dr. Clark: www.psychiatry.pitt.edu/node/9306

QV Voice is a student organization focused on Teens helping Teens. The group aims to promote and support healthy lifestyle choices by focusing on various topics that affect students’ lives. Youth Connect is a community collaborative that has the mission to provide the information, resources, and support needed to give our young people the best chance to enjoy their teen years while avoiding risky behaviors.  The goal of Youth Connect is to positively impact the lives of our community youth not by providing separate services, but by leveraging all the resources in the community to work together to address their needs.  For more information about Youth Connect or Dr. Clark’s presentation, please contact youthconnect@hotmail.com or visit youthconnectnews@blogspot.com.  

From The NYT: This Is Your Brain on Drugs

By ABIGAIL SULLIVAN MOORE OCTOBER 29, 2014

The gray matter of the nucleus accumbens, the walnut-shaped pleasure center of the brain, was glowing like a flame, showing a notable increase in density. “It could mean that there’s some sort of drug learning taking place,” speculated Jodi Gilman, at her computer screen at the Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Center for Addiction Medicine. Was the brain adapting to marijuana exposure, rewiring the reward system to demand the drug?

Dr. Gilman was reviewing a composite scan of the brains of 20 pot smokers, ages 18 to 25. What she and fellow researchers at Harvard and Northwestern University found within those scans surprised them. Even in the seven participants who smoked only once or twice a week, there was evidence of structural differences in two significant regions of the brain. The more the subjects smoked, the greater the differences.

Moderate marijuana use by healthy adults seems to pose little risk, and there are potential medical benefits, including easing nausea and pain. But it has long been known that, with the brain developing into the mid-20s, young people who smoke early and often are more likely to have learning and mental health problems. Now researchers suggest existing studies are no longer sufficient. Much of what’s known is based on studies conducted years ago with much less powerful pot.

Marijuana samples seized by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency show the concentration of THC, the drug’s psychoactive compound, rising from a mean of 3.75 percent in 1995 to 13 percent in 2013. Potency seesaws depending on the strain and form. Fresh Baked, which sells recreational marijuana in Boulder, Colo., offers “Green Crack,” with a THC content of about 21 percent, and “Phnom Penh,” with about 8 percent. The level in a concentrate called “Bubble Hash” is about 70 percent; cartridges for vaporizers, much like e-cigarettes, range from 15 to 30 percent THC.

A Harvard-Northwestern study has found differences between the brains of young adult marijuana smokers and those of nonsmokers. In these composite scans, colors represent the differences — in the shape of the amygdala, top, and nucleus accumbens. Yellow indicates areas that are most different, red the least.

THE JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE

High-THC marijuana is associated with paranoia and psychosis, according to aJune article in The New England Journal of Medicine. “We have seen very, very significant increases in emergency room admissions associated with marijuana use that can’t be accounted for solely on basis of changes in prevalence rates,” said Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and a co-author of the THC study. “It can only be explained by the fact that current marijuana has higher potency associated with much greater risk for adverse effects.” Emergency room visits related to marijuana have nearly doubled, from 66,000 in 2004 to 129,000 in 2011, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health ServicesAdministration.

Higher potency may also accelerate addiction. “You don’t have to work so hard to get high,” said Alan J. Budney, a researcher and professor at Dartmouth’s medical school. “As you make it easier to get high, it makes a person more vulnerable to addiction.” Among adults, the rate is one of 11; for teenagers, one of six.

Concerns over increasing potency, and rising usage among the young, is giving new urgency to research.

For the Harvard-Northwestern study, published in the April issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, the team scanned the brains of 40 young adults, most from Boston-area colleges. Half were nonusers; half reported smoking for one to six years and showed no signs of dependence. Besides the seven light smokers, nine used three to five days a week and four used, on average, daily. All smokers showed abnormalities in the shape, density and volume of the nucleus accumbens, which “is at the core of motivation, the core of pleasure and pain, and every decision that you make,” explained Dr. Hans Breiter, a co-author of the study and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern’s medical school.

Similar changes affected the amygdala, which is fundamental in processing emotions, memories and fear responses.

What is already known is that in casual users, THC can disrupt focus, working memory, decision making and motivation for about 24 hours. “The fact that we can see these structural effects in the brain could indicate that the effects of THC are longer lasting than we previously thought,” said Dr. Gilman, an instructor in psychology at Harvard’s medical school.

The study was preliminary and small, and attempts to replicate it are underway. Meanwhile, Dr. Gilman is trying to figure out how the findings relate to brain function and behavior.

One day in September, she was assessing Emma, a student who said her smoking — almost every day — didn’t interfere with school, work or other obligations. For $100 to go toward study-abroad plans, Emma politely plowed through nearly three hours of tests on cognitive functions that are or might be affected by THC, like the ability to delay gratification (would it be better to have $30 tonight or $45 in 15 days?) and motivation (a choice between computer games, the harder one offering a bigger payoff). For memory, Emma listened to lists of words, repeating back those she recalled. Next came risk. Would she bungee jump? Eat high-cholesterolfood? (“These kids tend to be risk takers, particularly with their own health and safety,” Dr. Gilman said.)

A final test: Did Emma crave a joint? Her response: somewhat.

Dr. Gilman is concerned about pot’s impact on the college population. “This is when they are making some major life decisions,” she said, “choosing a major, making long-lasting friendships.”

Dr. Volkow noted another problem: Partying on a Saturday night may hinder studying for a test or writing a paper due on Monday. “Maybe you won’t have the motivation to study, because there’s no reward, no incentive,” she said.

Evidence of long-term effects is also building. A study released in 2012 showed that teenagers who were found to be dependent on pot before age 18 and who continued using it into adulthood lost an average of eight I.Q. points by age 38. And last year at Northwestern, Dr. Breiter and colleagues also saw changes in the nucleus accumbens among adults in their early 20s who had smoked daily for three years but had stopped for at least two years.

They had impaired working memories as well. “Working memory is key for learning,” Dr. Breiter said. “If I were to design a substance that is bad for college students, it would be marijuana.”

Abigail Sullivan Moore is co-author of “The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids in College (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up.”

Education Life is a quarterly section offering news and commentary about higher education. You can reach us by emailing edlife@nytimes.com.

To Sip or Not to Sip: New Pitt Study Looks at Ramifications of Allowing Kids to Taste Alcohol

By David Templeton / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A parent enjoying an alcoholic drink might find his or her young child to be curious about what’s in that bottle or glass. It raises the question: Should the parent offer the child just a taste? Will it remove the temptation or encourage use or even abuse?

University of Pittsburgh researcher John E. Donovan said previous research findings prompt his recommendation against parents’ offering children a taste of alcohol. Even if research, so far, shows no harm from only a taste, it also has shown no benefit. So why encourage alcohol consumption?

His current study published online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research sought to identify factors that prompt children to taste or sip alcohol at ages as young as 8 or 10.

Research already has identified two factors predicting whether a 12-year-old child has tasted alcohol — the child’s attitude toward giving it a try and a family environment supportive of alcohol use.

But the study led by Mr. Donovan, a Ph.D. and associate professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Pitt, and co-written by Brooke S.G. Molina of Pitt’s departments of psychiatry and psychology, found that parental approval more so than the child’s psychological proneness is key to whether children 8 or 10 years old already have tasted alcohol.

“Children who sipped alcohol before age 12 reported that their parents were more approving of a child sipping or tasting alcohol and more likely to be current drinkers“ than those yet to have a sip,” he said. Parents’ comments confirmed that conclusion.

The study involving 452 children (238 girls and 214 boys 8 or 10 years old), and their families from Allegheny County, sought to identify factors that predict whether a child will start to sip or taste alcohol before age 12. One key finding is “that sipping during childhood is not itself a problem behavior, like delinquent behavior or drug use,” Mr. Donovan said.

A previous study he conducted determined that nearly two-thirds (66 percent) of 12-year-olds have at least tasted alcohol. Children often have their first taste of alcohol during family gatherings or celebrations, he said. Parents in the study, even those regularly drinking in the presence of their children, did not roundly approve of offering their children a taste. But some were less opposed to it.

“We don’t really know yet whether childhood sipping or tasting [of alcohol] has any future negative consequences,” he said. “But our previous research found that sipping or tasting alcohol by age 10 was significantly related to early-onset drinking — that is, having more than a sip or a taste before age 15.”

Previous research also found early-onset drinking, as opposed to just tasting, to be associated with numerous negative outcomes for adolescents and young adults, including alcohol abuse and dependence, illicit drug use, prescription drug misuse, delinquent behavior, risky sexual behavior, motor vehicle crashes and job problems, among others. But it’s not yet known whether just a taste or sip can lead to early consumption of alcohol and later negative outcomes.

But that information could eventually be drawn from already gathered information from Mr. Donovan’s ongoing longitudinal study, which is one that follows the same participants through time. “I don’t know whether sipping or offering a sip or taste can have any consequences later on,” he said. “So we shouldn’t assume there is no problem. You have to make your own decision, but it suggests that it may be a problem, and they shouldn’t have a taste.”

In a published reaction to the study, Robert A. Zucker, of the University of Michigan Addiction Research Center, said it would be “a significant mistake to misinterpret the study” as encouragement that early introduction of alcohol can prevent future problems.

“The fact that the majority of early sippers are not problem children, and that the majority of them do not go on to early regular use, is not evidence supporting the early introduction of drinking with the family as protective. It’s long-term effects remain still to be charted.”

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/health/2014/08/27/University-of-Pittsburgh-study-childhood-alcohol-sipping/stories/201408270238#ixzz3BhAMXA8L

Want to keep your new middle-schooler out of trouble? Then let them take risks.

From the Washington Posts On Parenting feature


By Michelle Icard August 20

Middle school gets a bad rap.

Ask parents of graduating elementary-schoolers how they feel about their kids moving up, and you’ll be surprised how many of their responses fall into the “totally dreading it” end of the anticipation spectrum.

(bigstock)

What’s so scary about middle school anyway? I mean, besides hormones, attitudes, peer pressure, emerging sexuality, defiance, exposure to drugs and alcohol… Um, okay. I get it. Middle school can be scary. But there is a lot to love about middle school, too. One of my favorites is that middle school can offer a buffet of new experiences, and kids should try them all. (Scratch that: No drugs and sex. But they should try a lot. )

Parents worry too much when their kids start listening to hard-core rap, or dyeing their hair strange colors, or making unlikely new friends. Instead, middle school should be seen as an important time to let kids begin to develop their identities apart from their parents. Who a child will become is not a foregone conclusion, and without trying a lot of new things, how can a young person truly know who she is? She has to test some limits. While it can be strange to see this happening, know that it’s happening for good reason.

Your kid doesn’t just want to take risks. She needs to take risks.

At around the age of 11, kids’ brains start undergoing some amazing, albeit messy, reorganization. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for impulse control, critical thinking and evaluating other people’s emotions (to name just a few of its important jobs) goes on vacation during the teen years. That’s when the amygdala, or emotional center of the brain, kindly takes over the decision-making department. This makes perfect sense when you consider how impulsive, reactive and dramatic middle-schoolers can be.

It’s not a fluke that kids become more impulsive in middle school. As tweens prepare to take their first big steps on the path toward independent thoughts and behavior, the adolescent brain can’t be dedicated to worrying about risk. Becoming an independent adult, after all, requires a lot of bravery, something impulse control tends to squelch. Put plainly, if your kid’s prefrontal cortex were highly functioning throughout adolescence, she would never consider leaving the comfort of home for college. Why should she take that risk when everything she needs to survive is at her fingertips under your roof?

Let them check the risk box

Understanding why middle-schoolers are driven toward risk-taking is helpful, but knowing how to keep them safe is even better. While a middle-schooler’s brain can’t tell the difference between a good risk and a bad risk, the good news is that it’s equally satisfied by both. You’ve probably heard that kids who play sports are less likely to engage in negative risky behavior. That is not because they’re too busy to find time to misbehave. (Note: This is not a call to sign your child up for every after school activity you can find. Being busy doesn’t satisfy the adolescent need to take risks. ) Instead, that’s because athletes are already taking risks on the field, so they’ve checked that box. And don’t fret if your kid isn’t a jock. Auditioning for a play, joining a new club, starting a baby-sitting business, or doing anything else that takes a kid out of his comfort zone will fulfill that risk-taking drive.

Often, parents think middle school is the time to clamp down and impose lots of limits, because they are fearful of their child making dangerous and impulsive decisions. Certainly, limits are appropriate, but they should be balanced with lots of encouragement to try new things. Yes, this will get messy. Switching friends, changing activities, dressing in all black, and hopping from obsession to obsession will make waves, leaving people, time and money in the wake. With any risk, good or bad, there are challenges. But consider the alternative. Kids who don’t belly up to the buffet and try new things, new friends, new styles and new behaviors may be compelled to try something worse. Or at the very least, they may get left behind by their peers, or miss getting a foothold in a fun new activity.

You can’t always protect them, but you can comfort them.

When my daughter was in fifth grade she auditioned for the school talent show. Though she had been an adorable performer during her early elementary years, this time I was nervous. By fifth grade, she had hit her awkward phase pretty hard. Her singing voice, on which she prided herself for years, had changed from cute and clear to a strangled, nasally something. “If she sings,” I thought, “she will mortify herself and people will tease her relentlessly.”

I so badly wanted to protect her from taking a risk that might get her ostracized, and I debated with myself for days over whether I should discourage her in order to protect her. And then it occurred to me, “Either way, she’ll be hurt. Don’t let it be by me.” Kids would tease, for this or for something else later on, and I wanted to always be her champion. Turns out, she did audition, she made the cut and both her nerves and the terrible cafeteria acoustics kindly muffled her voice enough that the performance was pretty unmemorable – in a good way. She has only happy memories of this event. I am so glad I kept my mouth shut.

So, if you and your tween are staring down the reality of life in middle school, start welcoming the changes coming your way, and not dreading them. Let them sing. Let them go Goth. Let them wear shorts all winter long. They’re just trying to figure out who they are, and that’s hard work. They’ll be grateful you’re by their side when all that work is done.

Michelle Icard is the author of Middle School Makeover: Improving the Way You and Your Child Experience the Middle School Years. Her web site is  www.MichelleintheMiddle.com.

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