COLLEGE STATION — Drivers are killed everyday in drinking and driving crashes, and a number of them are young drivers involved in illegal recreational drinking. Many of these deaths will occur around prom or graduation activities, tarnishing a young adult’s life.
In 1994, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reported a person was killed every seven hours and 29 minutes in Driving While Intoxicated crashes. This included 379 drivers under the age of 25, reported as DWI, who were in fatal accidents.
Nationally, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports more than 22 percent of all fatally injured 15- to 20- year-old drivers had a blood alcohol content of .10 or greater in 1994.
“If you’ve waited until prom or graduation to talk to your child about drinking, you’ve probably waited too late,” said Dr. Sarah Anderson, program leader for family development and resource management with the Texas Agricultural Extension Service. “If a child is drinking and driving, they’ve probably done it before the night of the prom. Parents need to be aware of this and not wait too long to talk to their children.
“Parents have to take advantage of situations that occur to point out to the child the consequences of various behavior,” she said. “When there is an accident, parents need to talk about other choices that could have been made to avoid the accident.
“One choice is not to drink at all, … the choice that most of us as parents would chose for our children,” Anderson said. “Unfortunately we don’t get to do the choosing.”
Anderson said parents need to tell their children if they do drink, to make good decisions like having a designated driver or calling someone to pick them up.
After-prom events are becoming more of an item with parents who want to help their children avoid unfavorable circumstances, according to Anderson. This may be school sponsored events or parties at their own homes which can be parent supervised.
Parents should make their children’s friends feel welcome in their home by giving them privacy, providing snacks or letting them play their own music, she said.
“Show kids that they can go out and have a good time without drinking,” she said. “Sometimes going out and getting drunk is seen as being the fun part and in reality, it’s probably not fun at all.
“Teenagers tend to think nothing bad will happen to them, that they are magically protected….It’s a reflection of the adolescent egocentrism,” she said. “Helping a teenager see that bad things can happen to them, can help them.”
Anderson said there is no point in yelling at your child if they come home drunk. The best advice is to put them to bed and deal with the problem in the morning.
She advises parents to take time to cool off when their child has made a wrong choice, then sit down and talk to them in a calm, rational manner.
She stressed that parents tell the child their concerns and why they feel this way. It also is important to discuss what are the safe alternatives to drinking. Explaining what happens to a person when they drink is more effective. Tell how only one or two drinks can affect reaction time and cause the teenager to have an accident.
“It goes back to being honest,” she said. “Parents need to tell their children, this is the reality….when you make this choice, this is what could happen.
“Kids are going to learn from their mistakes, not from mistakes we made as teenagers,” she said. “The sad thing is that sometimes those decisions are life-threatening. Whether it’s smoking, drinking or sex, we keep looking for simple solutions to complex problems and the solutions aren’t really simple. There are lots of contributing factors.
“If you can teach your kids to think through the decisions they make, the consequences and whether they are willing to accept the responsibility for those consequences, then we have to trust that they will make the right decisions,” she said.
Four times as many Americans have died in the last 10 years in drunken driving crashes than in the entire Vietnam conflict, according to NHTSA reports.
Coordinated Campaign Safe and Sober, a national project, is working to decrease these numbers and put an end to youth who drink and drive. The Texas Agricultural Extension Service heads the project for Texas and works with other agencies such as DPS, NHTSA and the Texas Department of Transportation.
Parents should not rely on society to teach their child right and wrong, said Marlene Albers, Campaign Safe and Sober coordinator for Extension. Parents need to be educated to stop and take the time to really talk to their children about drinking and driving.
“When a teenager is killed in a drinking and driving crash, not only has a precious life been lost,” Albers said, “the whole community experiences that loss.”
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