Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Teens on break: Parents must get involved

By STEPHEN WALLACE

Florida? Mexico? Canada? The Caribbean? So many choices, so little time. As spring break planning kicks into high gear, many families are left wondering how best to balance adolescent freedom and safety. After all, this is not your grandfather's spring break, nor probably even yours.

Accounts of excessive drinking, flagrant drug use and public sex on distant playgrounds are the stuff of modern legend, and not just among the college crowd. Younger teens are frequent targets of spring break marketing campaigns, with more than half of high school students reporting recently that they have seen the ads. "Party till you literally drop, wake up at 4 p.m. and do it all over again," promises one such pitch for student travel packages advertised on the Internet.

Clearly, the give and take that marks healthy transition from childhood to adulthood now centers less on curfews and cars than on drinking, drugs and sex. Cases in point are current family confabs about the advisability, even acceptability, of travel to far-off places on the backs of tour operators promoting reckless, if not illegal, alcohol use.

So what's a parent to do? Not long ago, a 12th grader I know was making the case for a "comfort zone" (a popular construct among youth) within which parents would allow teens to party with impunity, as long as the drinking was done "safely." This approach suggests an inevitability of destructive teen behavior that renders many adults ill-prepared to help steer adolescent decision-making, not to mention many young people victims, or at least casualties, of ill-conceived social outings such as spring break at the beach.

Those negotiating should know the risks:

Medical care in many resort areas is often inadequate to respond to drinking and other substance-related crises.

Some travel companies provide adult chaperones, but they are not responsible for monitoring students' alcohol or drug consumption or sexual behavior.

Many "all-inclusive" trips to foreign destinations such as the Caribbean, Mexico and Canada include booze cruises and all-you-can-drink parties sponsored by liquor distributors where alcohol is provided free of charge.

The drinking age in Mexico, Canada and much of the Caribbean is 18 or 19, and in many of these places age limits are only modestly enforced, if at all.

American citizens are subject to the laws of the country they are in. If a young person is arrested, there is little, if anything, that the U.S. State Department can do to help.

Even so, more than a few teens are lobbying mom or dad for escape to sun, sand and whatever else they might find. Everyone's going, right? Wrong.

A SADD/Liberty Mutual report reveals that many high school students (27 percent) would themselves be concerned about going on one of these trips and one-third (33 percent) would worry about a friend's going. Increasingly, young people are finding constructive, educational alternatives to idiotic beer blasts, wet T-shirt contests and other disgusting displays of alcohol and drug-induced antisocial behavior.

Such alternatives often take the form of community service: giving something back to those in need, all the while celebrating the many advantages bestowed upon young people fortunate enough to be burned out by schoolwork.

Here are just a few examples:

Habitat for Humanity Collegiate Challenge: Collegiate Challenge is one of the country's largest year-round alternative break programs, involving both high school and college students in constructing affordable housing (http://www.habitat.org).

Break Away: Break Away provides training and support to anyone interested in developing quality alternative break programs, offering introductory service-learning education with the goal of having students become lifelong participants in community service (http://www.alternativebreaks.org).

National Youth Service Day: The largest service event in the world, engaging millions of young Americans and focusing national attention on the leadership of young people (http://www.ysa.org).

SADD's Safe Spring Break Campaign also promotes a positive approach to spring vacation, providing young people with information about the dangers of alcohol poisoning, binge drinking and date rape drugs as well as a guide to planning and executing a community service project at home.

In his new book, "Kick Me, Adventures in Adolescence," TV's "Freaks and Geeks" creator Paul Feig writes, "Childhood is built on bad decision-making. In fact, if it weren't for all the bad decisions we were constantly carrying out as kids, there's a good chance that none of us would have figured out all the things we weren't going to do when we became adults."

An antithetical approach suggests that teens learn best from those who take the time and effort to help them make the type of decisions that will fuel healthy physical, social and emotional development, including during spring break.

But even if experience is the best teacher, wouldn't community service trump bikini bars and tequila shots?

[Stephen Wallace is a psychologist and the national chairman and chief executive officer of SADD, Inc. SADD sponsors school-based education and prevention programs nationwide and makes available at no charge the SADD Safe Spring Break Campaign. Toll-free: 877-SADD-INC. For more information on Teens Today research, visit www.saddonline.com or http://www.libertymutualinsurance.com.]