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Focus on Drunken Teens’ Deaths Should Not Only Be On Driving

Every time when teenagers go partying, their parents are always worried that they might not get back home if they engage in driving after drinking alcohol. These parents should be concerned about other factors that cause deaths in youth who engage in drinking, an activity that they should avoid until they come of age. The analysis that was made by MADD shows that deaths related to alcohol among the youths are less related to traffic. MADD which stands for Mothers against Drunken Driving did a 2010 data analysis from the records of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of Deaths and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Only 32% of all deaths that they found in the records were traffic related. The rest of the percentage was spread across other causes which are alcohol poisoning 15%, suicides 9%, homicides 30% and the remainder was as a result of other causes.

Steps That Parents Should Take

MADD’s national president Jan Wither said that as parents they are well aware of some of the risks of teenage drinking. She said that more is required to inform the parents about the probable dangers that are brought about by drinking at a young age where a child is below 21 years of age. The dangers are real and parents need to be aware of them in order to guide their children away from them by giving them realistic advice.

The collaboration of Nationawide Insurance and MADD presented that analysis at their PowerTalk21, where parents were given encouragement to begin engaging their children in talks about the effects and dangers of alcohol.

According to Prof. Rob Turrisi of Behavioral Health and Prevention at Pennsylvania State University, parents can engage their children in this conversation at any time of their ages. High school seniors can also guide those youths to change and do away with drinking alcohol before they join college. The behavior of a teenager can be reversed and changed if his or her parents engage them in serious talks about the dangers of drinking.

Turrisi observes that there are two vital social influences on a teenager’s life. Turrisi has done thorough research about underage drinking and his experience has enabled him to come up with a handbook for MADD, titled ‘Power of Parents’. It guides that the parents should concentrate on the teenagers friends because they play a major role on how the child behaves. Then there are the parents themselves. They have the ability to guide their children in the right direction with ease because they understand them well.

Parents Could Also Encourage Drinking Unknowingly

Another mistake that parents do, according to Nationwide’s associate president of consumer safety, Bill Windsor, is to expose their children to alcohol in their homes and withdraw car keys from them. It is never a preventive measure because what they are doing at home they will try to do it with their friends away from home and it might end fatally.

Other effects of teenage drinking are poor performance in school and getting pregnant at an early age.