underage drinking

[Coral]

Since I posted last I ended up having a conversation with my daughter...if you can call it that, with her crying...
I had just finished looking over the book "Yes, your teen is crazy", I read it from front to back last year. So I was just refreshing my memory about a few things.
So in my head I knew what I was going to say, well it definely didn't turn out that way at all. My daughter has admitted that she does want to drink, and if I would just allow her too, then she thinks it wouldn't be such a big deal all the time. She also can't understand as to why me and her Dad need to know where she is going all the time...umm because you are the child...
I'm now waiting for her to decide what the consequences should be, I didn't punish her or take away the computer, etc...
I'm hoping that we can work this out because she is a great girl, and we only want what is best for her and I don't want to see anything bad happen to her.
And what really scares me is my brother commited suicide when he was 16 and I always have that in the back of my mind...because as far as we know there was no reason that we could see as to why he did it.
So as you can see, I'm finding this very hard to deal with and wanting to make sure that we make the right decisions.

[Mike Bradley]

Dear Mom,
As impossible as this sounds, you must separate the tragedy of the loss of your brother from the process of rule setting with your child. She is in a very scary place right now, one where her friends (and our adult culture) are telling her that teen drinking is no big deal. If you read my newsletters on adolescent drinking you will see the scary statistics which you need to share with your kid. Alcohol kills more teens than all other drugs COMBINED. And most teen suicides are associated with drug use (alcohol is a drug). So in my view, the risk of death for you daughter is heightened with any action on you part which allows her to drink. Conversely, clear and firm rules (dispassionately enforced) which say that drinking is NOT OK will reduce the risk of your brother's tragedy revisiting your family.
Remember, appropriate rules enforced firmly but lovingly are safety fences for teens in their crazy years.
Keep us posted.