It dawned on me that there is a big hole right now in the way we teach our children about alcohol.
Currently, all the education I have seen lumps illegal drugs with drinking abuse. There is a mantra of "just say no". Well, there is a big problem with this thinking: drugs will always be illegal, but drinking will be legal when you hit 21. But thats not how educational programs treat them. Current education for children and young adults basically lumps illegal drugs with drinking, sort of treating them both like they will always be illegal. That leaves the education of responsible drinking to parents and universities (which at that time is far too late in the education cycle). And since parents never got a home education on drinking, they won't feel the need to educate their kids (religious reasons aside).
The L.A. Times article goes on to indicate that the European way is different. Many of their children will have had exposure to drinking going so far as to give them a watered-down drink to teach them what it tastes like, and educates them that social drinking is OK. The article continues to state that recent studies indicate that children who are exposed to responsible drinking at home (wine with dinner, a beer after work), tended less to be binge drinkers as they grew older.
The Ah-Ha moment for me was the need to separate education of drugs and education of alcohol because as I said, drugs will always be illegal, but alcohol becomes legal at 21.
What have you done to educate your children on all the aspect of drinking (social, abusive, affect on the body, used as a mood changer), etc?
This is a topic I will be discussing with our Board to find out if there is missing niche here that The Joshua Project may be able to fill.
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I realized how true your statement was when I was sitting at a bar not too long ago and the police walked in to check for smoking in the bars (this was right after they banned it) I was sitting with some friends when I saw the officer walk in I immediately hid my drink, when I looked around I also noticed that my friends also became nervous about the alcohol in front of them. My friends and I are of legal age and are able to drink and had been for a few years, but I still had that mentality of drinking being illegal.
ReplyDeleteYep, old habits die hard.
ReplyDeleteyes, magically at age 21 a door opens and the experience begins. Would you go to Acapulco and dive from the cliffs before you learned how to swim? Same holds true for 16,17 year old kids getting driver's licenses. So mix alcohol and new drivers (ok throw in cliff diving too!) what a deadly mix!
ReplyDeleteI had a few unfortunate incidents where I was stopped while walking under the influence back in college and was issued a drinking ticket (or two...long story). Anyway, the point is, After getting the ticket(s) they made me take an alcohol education class. I learned more about how to safely and responsibly drink in that class than I ever knew before that. This is exactly the type of things that need to be taught to students before its too late. Good idea all around.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hear more about these alcohol education classes Anonymous talked about. Components of it might be good to have online.
ReplyDelete