Should Parents Help Teens Experiment Responsibly with Drinking? 5 Questions for a Bestselling Author

Sobriety Expert Jessica Lahey Says, “This Is the Question I Get Most Often from Parents.”

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Jessica Lahey is a marvel of wisdom, vulnerability, tough love, and comfort. An educator on the front lines of adolescents for more than two decades, she is the author of the sensational bestseller The Gift of Failure. As the New York Times wrote in its review:

“'The ugly and wonderful truth about middle school,' [Lahey] says, is that 'failure is not an if proposition, it’s a matter of when.' Or it used to be. Now that parents shelter their children every step of the way, we have 'failure deprived' college students (as administrators at Stanford and Harvard call them) and entitled, anxious 20-somethings who can’t function in a world that’s sometimes cold or cruel or indifferent. So how can teachers snatch back their critical role and give children the necessary space to fail? They could start by making parents read Lahey."

As honest and revealing as this book was, in her latest book, The Addiction Inoculation, she went even further: Plumbing her own experience with alcoholism and parenting to address one of the fourth rails of families. How to handle drinking and teens.

As the parent of teens myself, I hear all sort of theories, worries, convictions, and myths. I reached out to Jessica with some of the most common questions I hear. I would love to hear your views in the comments.

Photo credit thismomloves.ca

1. First, thank you for agreeing to participate in this conversation. Before I get into the questions, tell me a little more about your connection to this subject. Why have you devoted so much of your precious work life to this topic?

I was a teacher for 20 years, and I’ve taught every grade from 6-12 as an English, writing, and Latin teacher. The last five years of my career were spent teaching teens in a drug and alcohol recovery center for adolescents, a highlight of my teaching career, frankly. I have nine years of recovery myself, so figuring out how kids end up needing rehab while breaking down what I need to do to protect my own kids from substance use disorder has been the focus of my career recently.

While I’ve nominally been a teacher and education journalist, the real focus of my working life has been about promoting and protecting the health, welfare, and rights of children. I love my job, and my books, The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation are simply my own efforts to understand how kids learn, grow, and become their best, healthiest selves.

2. Let's stipulate that the holy trinity of difficult conversations between parents and children are, in no particular order, sex, drinking, and money. How is drinking similar or different to those other topics?

All difficult conversations get easier the more often we have them, so the more I talk about this topic with parents, teachers, and kids, the more likely those people will be to go on talking, making each subsequent conversation easier. Besides, because I’m white and economically secure, I’m allowed to talk about my own recovery. I get a lot of “oh, how brave of you,” but if I were not white, or a single mom, or a woman of color, I would not get a pass on my years of drinking and subsequent recovery.

I have to talk about this challenging topic so others may be allowed to face their own challenges and ask for help without being fired, shamed, or considered suspect. Being public also keeps me honest. I can’t do this work unless I’m sober, and the people who look to me for guidance and support depend on me to be there when they are ready to talk. A big part of recovery is service to other people suffering from substance use disorder, so this is my service as well as my life’s work.

3. I hear parents saying that if they encourage their children to drink around the house or at a family meal, that they can de-romanticize drinking and thus reduce the chances their child goes from naive to bingeing. I also hear parents saying that since their children are going to drink anyway, the parents would prefer to provide the beverages for a get-together at home rather than have their children doing anything illegal or risk drinking and driving. Are these impulses correct?

This is the question I get most often and the answer to this question receives the most pushback. We know based on research that parents who convey a consistent and clear message of “No, not until your brain is finished developing” or “No, not until it’s legal for you” (choose your message, I opt for the one about brain development), have kids with much lower rates of substance use disorder. Parents who convey a permissive stance around substance use raise kids with a much higher rate of substance use and substance use disorder. I often hear, “I want to raise my kids like those European kids, people who are moderate about their use and don’t freak out when alcohol is suddenly available to them,” or “Kids are going to drink, so it may as well be at my home, where I can keep them safe”

Here’s the problem with these messages. One, it indicates a permissive stance on substance use, which results in much higher rates of substance use, and higher rates of substance use disorder over their lifetime. Two, it is not inevitable that kids use, and it’s these attitudes that perpetuate childhood use. Three, the World Health Organization is clear: the European Union as a whole has the highest rates of alcohol consumption in the entire world and the highest share of deaths attributable to alcohol consumption

I don’t know about you, but if I were to hold up one region of the world as a role model of moderation, it would not be the EU. I get it, the myth persists, but it’s a myth that needs to be busted once and for all. Finally, no matter how hard we try, parents cannot teach moderation to people with substance use disorder. I can’t moderate my alcohol intake and no matter how much my parents modeled moderate use in front of me, I would not have been able to moderate my drinking.

4. What warning signs should parents be on the lookout for that suggest their children may be more than a recreational drinker and have a serious problem, or at least the beginnings of one?

Signs of substance use or substance use disorder (as well as many other physical and mental health conditions in kids) are best spotted through change. Changes in appetite, mood, sleep, that sort of thing. Keep in mind that even rapid changes in the right direction, like a kid who has been depressed but is suddenly brimming with enthusiasm or happiness, or a kid with sleeping problems who is suddenly sleeping a lot can be problematic and we should be asking questions about the cause of these changes. We know our kids best, and we know when something is off. As for when it’s time to bring in a professional, don’t underestimate the power of a trip to the primary health care provider, as they can be a critical risk screening ally. If parents are questioning whether it’s time to step things up to professional substance use disorder help, I recommend Dr. Joseph Lee’s book, Recovering My Kid: Parenting Young Adults in Treatment and Beyond.

5. After all these years of thinking, writing, and counseling around these issues, what's the hardest question you still struggle with?

I still struggle with the line between worry and action. My kids are at higher risk of substance use disorder because they were born to two parents with a genetic history of substance use disorder. I worry a lot about what that means for them, especially as I have a kid in college and she’s not right here in my house under my supervision anymore.

However, I try to remember that what works for prevention also serves double duty as the information kids who tip over from social use to dependence or full-on substance use disorder need in order to realize they are in trouble and need help. At this point, all I can do is hope the prevention and information I’ve heaped on my kids is enough to help them make smart decisions about substance use, and allow them to reach out and talk to me or another trusted adult if they are concerned they may have a problem with drugs or alcohol.

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