“Is it like, bad for you to stay a virgin all of your life?” This is one of the sweetest, most honest (and heartbreaking) questions I have ever gotten in 18 years of working with kids. An 8^th grade girl asked me this in a small class of 8 females. It reminded me of when my mother and oldest sister explained intercourse to me and called it “mating.” After they described what it was I whispered, “Am I going to have to do that?” My mother said “not for a long time.” This actually made me feel better and I think it was the very answer this 8^th grade girl was looking for – permission to put it off until the whole subject feels more manageable. I explained that everyone is different about sex and each person finds her own path. Some people choose a monastic life or celibacy, but most people find someone to share an intimate life with and it’s not something to dread. Just like alcohol, sex will wait for you; it’s not going anywhere and there is no rush.

I am hired by schools to deliver alcohol and other drug education, but it’s becoming clear that pornography feels like a bigger threat to kids. I recognize pornography, whether it’s rated XXX or Kate Moss advertising Calvin Klein products, as sexually explicit images that lack human feeling or connection. Pornography is high intensity, low emotion.  Women (or select parts of women) with little or no clothing on are sprinkled all over magazines, billboards, televisions screens and Internet sites. Girls are given the message that above all, they need to be “hotties.” This also raises male expectations that women will be wildly attractive and totally available. I get emphatic nods from girls when I observe out loud that they seem more stressed about sex than drugs. They are more worried about the world of sex and see it as inevitable in a way that drug use isn’t. In this landscape of Viagra, breast implants and Internet Porn, it makes sense that kids are rather baffled by it all. When sex comes up in conversation during my health classes, the girls sometimes look at me in a pleading sort of way – they want some sort of assistance, but can’t really articulate it. It’s like there is a killer hiding in the closet and they are trying to tell me with their eyes. I am not there to give them a moral education and I am neither conservative nor religious. I care about their health and want them to feel knowledgeable and supported enough to delay sexual behavior until they are truly ready. This is our wish for boys, too. Males can also get hurt or overwhelmed by sex and all its mysteries. I don’t know what boys are thinking and I don’t want to guess. The nice, thoughtful boys are quiet and the goofballs act jerky out of discomfort, I suppose.

I keep a folder on the desktop of my computer called Gallery of Offenders.  Every time I come across a particularly offensive ad, I add it to the folder. Students are curious about it and when I share it with them, we have pretty riveting discussions. This is a conversation where the boys will join in with insights and questions, too. Here are a few images from the Gallery Of Offenders – they speak for themselves. It’s hard to watch kids struggle through this sexually hostile environment.

I never thought I would write a blog about football. This isn’t really about football; it’s about how money and power eclipse our concern for kids in this country. A heinous example is the Penn State situation where outright abuse of children was allowed or ignored to protect an institution and its football program. That is just sad. And gross. Another less vile, but grotesque feature of football and other major league male sports is the spectacular glorification of alcohol in the form of commercials and fan behavior. Again, not in the same category as pedophilia, but uncomfortable similarities exist. We allow goliath companies to have more power than they deserve, even at a cost to our nation’s children. Alcohol is not harmful to everyone, but it is harmful to kids, who make up a significant percentage of viewers. Many boys play these same sports and eagerly watch their heroes play punctuated by beer ads. After a young boy has seen thousands of examples of handsome, successful, “cool” guys get the babe of their dreams while having all kinds of fun with booze, it actually seeps into his hard drive. Beer = Manhood. I teach middle school aged boys and they go wild when I show them beer commercials during the media literacy part of my workshop. They often know them all by heart. Kids get their ideas about alcohol from these images and the messages are all positive with lots of glitz, humor and sex appeal.

As an athlete, I appreciate all kinds of sports and believe that moving your body is a good thing. Teamwork is also a powerful experience for a young person and I couldn’t be more supportive of athletics. I just wish we could separate sports from alcohol. It’s a crazy combo – alcohol is a potent central nervous system depressant and would be detrimental to any sports performance. I am a distance runner and luckily my sport is not at all associated with alcohol. Coverage of the Boston Marathon does not typically include any beer commercials. You won’t find ads for alcohol in women’s tennis, either. It seems that all male organizations have the biggest issues with binge drinking – men’s sports teams, fraternities and the military are all associated with heavy alcohol use. It’s a shame, as these organizations also have a lot of positive features. How can we show the young men of tomorrow a healthier view of manhood? I get it that advertising in the super bowl is all about money, but I don’t accept that. Tobacco is also about money and we kicked them off TV a long time ago. There are safe uses of alcohol, so perhaps forbidding all advertising isn’t necessary, but could we not impose a limit on how many ads or have restrictions during certain programs and time frames? Some people think me a heretic when I suggest this…Money and football shouldn’t be more important than kids – we are seeing that play out in excruciating ways with the Penn Sate scandal. Perhaps we can apply this painful lesson to other areas where we are failing kids.

Okay, I need help. Only people who don’t or didn’t drink/use other drugs in high school can give me the perspective I seek. I get weary when parents insist that it is unrealistic or impossible to raise a sober kid these days. It’s disorienting, too, as I meet MANY healthy, sober students in my travels and I know how possible it is! I must add that the parents who think all kids drink tend to have kids who drink. So, does this mean that they truly tried everything and it still didn’t work or that they somehow transmitted the expectation to their child that it’s not really possible or necessary to abstain from alcohol, so of course the kid drinks? I cannot answer this. I do know that the parents of non using kids utilize all or most of the following ingredients: they offer unconditional, secure love. Alcohol and other drug use is handled as a health and safety issue. There are many conversations throughout childhood and adolescence where expectations and rules are set, as well as explained. Those talks sound like this: “Darling, you are my Hope Diamond and I could never replace you – this is why I won’t allow you to go into dangerous situations where you could come to harm.” All of this is done with warmth and humor over good food!

Healthy kids don’t resent their parents and actually understand the meaning behind the rules. These households appear to be pretty serene and the family spends time together. Kids will generally keep their parents norms, especially if they make sense. I was recently working with parents and I could tell some of them were frustrated with my message. They kept asking for more strategies to keep their kids safe and happy that didn’t involve them having rules or ever saying no. One parent described how her son didn’t “allow” her out of the kitchen when he had friends over. I don’t want to judge these parents, I want to learn more so I can be more helpful to all parents. Most parents love their children and want the best outcome…Alcohol feels like a big Goliath and there are many forces at work. Booze is everywhere and made to look wildly attractive – here is one of the latest Heineken ads that I use in my seminar to spark conversation with students http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLgetLmlggA&feature=player_profilepage. It speaks for itself.

So, Anyone reading this, adult or kid, who is experiencing high school sober or had that experience after 1970, please leave a comment here or email me at bconlan@capecod.net. I want to know what role parents play in that decision – even if you don’t think your story is interesting, I will!

Ella, an emerging teen

So, it’s been a while. I didn’t think about alcohol and other drug education this summer – I let my mind rest and raised a puppy. I don’t believe I missed any remarkable new findings in the field and it enabled me to begin the Drug Lady World Tour in Ecuador feeling relaxed and enthusiastic about my work.

It might even be true that living with a new pup gave me much insight and compassion for the parents of young humans. After 2 nights of listening to Ella, an 8 week old Australian Shepherd, wail inconsolably in her crate, I was ready to return her to the breeder. My 14-year-old Collie mix died in April, which left me mute with grief. This new puppy was such an affront after living for years with a well-behaved adult dog. My spouse talked me out of taking her back to Pennsylvania. That morning Ella and I held paws, looked into one another’s eyes and promised we would learn how to live together – I never considered dumping her again, even though there was no chance of her growing up and getting a job. All summer, her cuteness kept me from throwing her away. I reckon this is why all parents keep their offspring initially…She ruined my sleep with middle of the night outings, bugged me the whole time she was awake (don’t puppies take naps?) and sank her needle teeth into me every chance she got. She even bit the stone statue of Buddha in the head every time we walked by – this is when I decided not to take anything she did personally. I spent the summer wearing my brother’s shorts that I found in the garage, as she destroyed all of my clothing with her hooligan antics. All of my pants have holes in increasing elevation as she learned to jump higher with her mouth snapping like a piranha. I was sharing my home with a devilish gremlin, who I actually…loved. One day, when she was 14 weeks old, I recognized that she was no longer biting me or whizzing on the floor whenever she felt like it – she was getting civilized and mastering the basic obedience commands. My hard work and heavy lifting during puppyhood was paying off!

Like a toddler, this little being needs more shaping – anything I don’t want her to do as an adult dog, I don’t let her do now. I am learning that I can be firm without being unfair or harsh. Consistency is key and it’s important to have fun. Secure love will produce the best outcome, along with encouragement for positive behavior. Obviously, raising a human child is oceans more complicated and important than having a dog. I don’t mean to trivialize the crucial distinction between animals and people, but I enter this new school year feeling freshly informed about the joy and pain of caring for a young one.

The students I will teach tomorrow were born in 1997, but they really don’t seem different than kids ever have. These kids have ipods, Starbucks and cell phones, but their insides haven’t changed. What they fret about, what moves and intrigues them you can find in any Shakespeare play or recognize in ancient cave drawings. I find that teenagers have a very certain kind of sadness particular to that age and they tend to worry a lot. I was born in 1965. My teen sadness made me lonely, impulsive and self-destructive. Much of my drug abuse was an attempt to get away from an unformed self with unruly feelings. I stopped drinking and using other drugs (except tobacco) on March 14, 1982 at age 17. I have an odd habit of stopping behavior just when it is peaking; 1978 – 1982 were the pinnacle years for alcohol and other drug abuse in this country. I quit smoking cigarettes as a college student when I moved to Europe. College is not usually a time to quit things and many people actually take up smoking in Europe or at least keep smoking once they get there! So, I have funny timing and maybe I don’t have typical adult feelings. I find that to be middle-aged is to be sad, too – in a whole different, even helpful way. As a 46-year-old woman, sorrow makes me tender, thoughtful and compassionate. I feel more vulnerable now than I ever have, but in a positive way. Knowing just how wrong things can go lends much gratitude when things are fine. I judge less and spend more time in other people’s shoes, understanding how like me they must be. Sad isn’t bad, it’s a question of what you do with it, which is true with so much of life.

I had lunch yesterday with fellow teachers. We talked about kids and how challenging it can be to manage a room full of teens that don’t have that “tender “kind of sorrow – that special, youthful pain doesn’t always present in attractive ways. I don’t know what it says about me that I have such empathy for this age group and their behavior really never gets me down. I chalk it all up to the idea that young people do young things – hasn’t this always been true?

*Art by Sharon Harper

I am giving Glee a Zero for the day. Tuesday’s episode, “Blame it on the alcohol” missed the boat in drastic ways. I cringed my way through the show. This is a sadness, as I have enjoyed the show thus far and with such a massive teen audience, they could have done something really thoughtful about youth drinking. The episode was 44 minutes long and had a total of 2 minutes of feeble (kind of funny) consequences from binge drinking. A few members of the Glee club puke on stage while performing at the alcohol awareness assembly. Cute. There is one other scene where the high school students are hungover, bantering back and forth about how ill they feel in a clever, amusing way.  Besides that, the show is chock full of cliches and popular misconceptions about alcohol use. The goody two shoe glee club member, Rachel has been left home alone by her trusting parents – her friends talk her into having a drinking bash and the party is a downer until the booze starts to flow.  The kids then come alive! It brings out their sexuality, their “true feelings” and we even get to hear all of the categories of female drunks there are…The crying girl drunk, the aggressive girl drunk, the stripper girl drunk and so on…The 8th grade girls I was teaching today were wondering which category they would fall into. At one point the students of McKinley High are complaining about stupid alcohol awareness week and a girl comments that she is “aware of how FUN alcohol is.” Even the glee club teacher announces that as long as kids aren’t driving, there is no real harm in getting wasted – he demonstrates this by going out on a binge himself with another teacher and has the time of his life doing shots and whooping it up at a honky tonk bar.

I spend my time trying to help kids think about their lives and care for themselves. At its worst, alcohol abuse causes trouble, illness and death – at the least, it is at the root of a lot of pain and disrupted relationships. The message teens get in the world is that alcohol gives you your spark, makes you sexy, creates more fun, enables you to feel closer to people and needs to be there or life is a big snore. I was disappointed that the producers of Glee didn’t show more courage and intelligence by delivering a show that would inspire its many fans to think about teen alcohol use in a meaningful way.

I have been writing this blog in my mind for around 15 years. I have traveled around the world for over 20 years now and I also lived in Germany as a teacher in my twenties. America is the only country where popular culture urges teenagers to think it’s cool to hate their parents, disregard older people and go through an awful phase. Why? I am sure there are many social and historical reasons, but it’s a shame…Don’t misunderstand, I love teenagers in this country – once you put a crack in that impostor veneer, they are fabulous, earnest company in class. I wish adults didn’t buy into this myth that teens have to go through a hostile stage on their way to adulthood. I am telling you that it isn’t like that in the rest of the world. Europe might be a wee bit like that, but when you go to Asia or Africa, there is none of it. I just spent two weeks in Africa – the first week was in Rabat, Morocco and I spent the second week in Dakar, Senegal. The students were a delight in both schools. The kids in Senegal greeted me every morning by asking me how I slept! They revere their elders; speak warmly of their grandparents and even the “wildest” boys in the school were completely polite and called me Miss Drug Lady. I actually believe American teenagers would prefer to be nice, but our society polices them out of that behavior by reinforcing the idea that it is “normal” to be withdrawn or aggressive as a teen. If we made less room for that behavior, it would slowly fade away, as it isn’t really natural. Sometimes it feels like kids are following a script from trash TV rather than being themselves. It’s similar to a “boys will be boys” attitude, which encourages sexist or abusive behavior by males. These justifications have no merit.

Our kids are doing better than many in other countries – we have fewer drinkers and our society (police, shopkeepers, schools, etc) actually speaks with one voice on teen drinking – at least officially. In the developing world, it is mostly lawless and ex-pat kids have lots of money, and in many cases, no supervision. Their parents are jet setters and leave them home with servants for long stretches – these kids are at enormous risk in ways that a typical suburban kid here in the states isn’t. So, it isn’t perfect anywhere, but a shift in our cultural concept of teens as young people with manners certainly wouldn’t hurt!

Delay, delay, delay – that is what we are asking kids to consider when discussing their relationship with alcohol. People who postpone alcohol use until adulthood fare way better with alcohol throughout their lives. These “late onset” drinkers are more likely to approach alcohol as a beverage, rather than a drug. This theory has been proven time and again in this country, as well as abroad. It doesn’t surprise me that kids don’t want to buy this, as I have a hard time selling it to their parents. There is a MOUNTAIN of research showing that parents who lovingly forbid alcohol use with much warm and reasonable conversation tend to raise children who are far less likely to drink dangerously in college or experience problems with alcohol later in life. NPR aired an excellent article on the potent role parents can play in their teen’s decision-making about alcohol. http://www.npr.org/2010/12/27/132288846/parenting-style-plays-key-role-in-teen-drinking?sc=emaf Will zero tolerance keep children from sneaking some alcohol at some point in high school? Perhaps not. Will it save them from future addiction? Almost definitely.

We are working towards the best-case scenario here, not seeking perfection or something completely unrealistic. When parents consistently send a health message about avoiding alcohol until emotional and physical maturity has been reached, the kids will likely end up intact. No other sentence causes more combat in a parent meeting than when I ask parents to help their children postpone drinking as long as possible. There is at least one parent in every audience who insists that kids drink because it isn’t allowed and that mom and dad take away the mystique by allowing their children to drink before the legal age. This “forbidden fruit myth” is one of the more destructive belief systems today. There is a recent, compelling study that successfully dispels this very myth by Dutch researcher, Haske Van der Vorst.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127222042 When I see how excited some of these parents become, I wonder what is really at stake for them to lower the boom on this one issue. I have started posing a question to these doubting parents for them to just reflect on as they think about alcohol and child rearing. I don’t expect an answer live in the meeting but I send them all home with this query: Since research shows that there is nothing in it for your child, what’s in it for you to let your child drink in high school? Who is it actually benefitting for you to be lenient about drinking? It might be helpful to examine your message about alcohol and make an honest cost/benefit list. Is it just easier or friendlier to let your child drink? In the end, whose needs are you addressing with your rules and what will the ultimate outcome be? Unanswered questions make great traveling companions and these questions are vital to the health of any family.

Last week I received the most moving compliment of my entire career. A woman approached me after a parent meeting and told me about a conversation her son initiated with her after school. I had just finished a 4-day seminar with his 8^th grade science class and he came home with the following announcement: “Mom, I can change!” I asked the mother if he needed to change and she said that he had some unpleasant behaviors (nothing to do with alcohol and other drugs) that could use modification. In class we talked about how harmful behavior by one member of a family can launch the whole family into disarray – in many cases, if the disruptive person knew how their loved ones were suffering, they would be willing to address the behavior. I was actually trying to encourage the students to talk honestly with friends if they were worried about dangerous or unhealthy activity on the friend’s part. Her son explained that he realized during this session with me that he could apply the same principles to his own family life and that his behavior at home was causing stress. It’s fascinating how it sometimes takes a stranger for us to understand ourselves and those we love.

I had the pleasure of teaching all boys last week. What fun! Being with boys is like playing the kazoo; there is something totally whimsical about the experience, yet they respond in a natural and earnest way. They aren’t focusing on the ultimate outcome of the Prevention seminar; they truly live in the moment, which gives me the freedom to do the same. My ultimate goal in all of my work is to give people, all people (students, parents, everybody), the feeling that they have more options than they think they do. Most destructive behavior is related to the idea that there isn’t a better way or simply another way to cope. A boy who goes home with the belief that he is capable of change is an incredible victory and I am grateful to the woman who took the time to tell me about it.

Speaking of gratitude – a lovely Thanksgiving to all!

Peer Education can be a thing of beauty. Many students in the schools I visit report powerful experiences, both as peer advisers and recipients of peer education. I have been doing some soul searching after a session with peer advisers during a recent school visit that felt difficult. The students were mostly juniors and seniors and they work with small groups of freshman on a weekly basis talking about various aspects of high school life. I began by asking them why they felt compelled to do this service and got lots of inspiring answers – they loved their own time with peer advisers as 9^th graders or they felt that younger students might benefit from some positive attention and guidance from older students. I think these kids are doing a lot of things well as peer educators and are bringing a good heart to the job. The conversation got tense when I asked them what would be a helpful message to give 14 and 15 year olds about alcohol. I was hoping these student leaders would consider the idea that postponing alcohol use until adulthood is the safest option. Postponement gives a youngster the chance to develop a full set of crucial life skills before they launch a relationship with a potent drug like alcohol. The younger students will also be given more room around the pressing issue of drinking if older students who they admire validate and encourage non-use. The peer educators didn’t want to look at why drinking young might be a hazard – many of them are already involved with alcohol and have been for some time. I have never been able to decide if it makes sense for a school to have only non-drinkers as peer advisers. I’m truly torn. I don’t feel totally easy with this requirement, as it immediately limits the pool of potential applicants and could deprive drinkers of having a positive role in their communities (which might lead them towards a healthier path). Alcohol/drug use is only one spoke in the wheel of what peer educators discuss with younger students…I clearly need to talk to more school people about this and pay closer attention to peer education programs at my client schools. Teens are already getting so many pro alcohol messages all over the place (our society is literally like anonymous peer pressure blaring out of loud speakers all day long), that I would love for them to get permission not to drink from people they think of as cool and credible. It was interesting and alarming to hear from some of the peer advisers that they see no reason to delay drinking and even believe it could be harmful to postpone drinking, as sober high school kids won’t be able to handle alcohol as college students. It’s discouraging to hear teens are making vital health decisions based on myths. Data consistently shows that problem drinking in college is generally seen in students who brought a drinking pattern with them from high school. It’s rare indeed that people who make healthy choices all through high school suddenly lose their minds with booze when they arrive on the college campus. There was a hopeful moment when one senior boy suddenly said, “Well my little brother is in 9^th grade and I don’t want him to drink.” When I asked why, he replied that he didn’t want anything to happen to him. I have to trust that other less vocal kids in the room shared the belief that drinking can bring a young person to harm.

During this intense discussion it also dawned on me that some of the peer educators sounded just like a few parents who had spoken up in favor of “teaching kids to drink” at my parent meeting the night before. Do we teach kids how to have sex, knowing they will someday be sexual? Do we let them vote early so they will be good at voting as adults? Do we allow them to drive the family car years before they get their licenses? For that matter, do we make them get jobs and support themselves at 15 or 16? Why do adults have such a hard time keeping a boundary with alcohol use? All of these ruminations remind me that prevention really has so little to do with kids!

I am willing to look at my role in shutting down the dialogue in the peer adviser meeting – I have pondered whether my attitude and approach felt restricting to the students in that room…My job is 90% enjoyable and 10% agony – I know I don’t grow if it’s all fun, and these hard moments are where I can learn to serve students better. My growth as an educator has come from the painful parts of my experience. I remain curious and appreciate the kids’ pushback, as I believe it brought us all forward.