Help Teens Celebrate Rites of Passage Safely, Soberly

from School Health Reporter, Spring 2005

By Jeffrey I. Dolgan, PhD, Chief of Psychology, The Children's Hospital

“Please stand and recognize the graduating class of 2006!”

Will upcoming high-school graduations and proms across the state be milestones in everyone’s life? The end of a 13-year journey that has taken students from kindergarten to their senior years, a stepping stone to future careers and college? Or will the event turn into a horrific scene from a movie marred by alcohol-related, often fatal traffic accidents, pathological drinking, date rapes and destruction at prom parties and other tragedies, the scars of which will last forever?

How to plan for and provide safe, fulfilling and fun venues has become a challenge for all school officials and parent committees. How to channel known immature decision-making into sound and safe choices is a worrisome challenge for parents.

We try to organize as adults to keep students safe and property intact.  Parents and graduating teens need to know the benefits of clean fun and the sad consequences of an arrest for drug possession or underage drinking. Some communities have provided graduating seniors with a booklet of coupons worth hundreds of dollars plus information on seeking help in an emergency, as well as wristbands good for free public transportation for senior week. Schools, retailers, limousine drivers and law-enforcement authorities are now preparing for spring celebrations such as school proms and graduations. Obviously there is more to this rite of passage than selecting the perfect dress, making reservations for transportation and dinner, or attending parties.

According to the National Highway Transportation Administration, spring marks a sharp increase in underage traffic fatalities related to alcohol. Some surveys find that one out of every four high-school seniors admits to having driven after excessive drinking at least once during the past school year.

Because kids face immense peer pressure, organizations are partnering to demonstrate the often fatal consequences of underage drinking and to help graduating seniors celebrate as safely as possible.

As school health personnel, our first task is to raise awareness. We must warn both teens and parents about the legal consequences of underage drinking and encourage safe alcohol-free prom and graduation celebrations.

Next, we must increase supervision. School events must be supervised by law enforcement. Thus, on prom and graduation nights, we will see increases of agents on duty.  We must be sure that the law-enforcement personnel visit proms, as well as hotels and motels, to discourage underage drinking and other problems. Obviously, retailer compliance checks are in order to discourage illegal sales to minors. The Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) conducts an education campaign called PROMise To Keep It Safe, in which local MADD chapter representatives attend high-school presentations about underage drinking while providing information about safe proms and other tips for keeping teens safe in this season. Among the tips suggested for teens:

• Discuss all plans with friends and your date ahead of time. Know your agenda and communicate with parents.
• Plan ahead what to say or do when offered alcohol or illegal drugs. Know your date before you go to the prom. If a date is a set-up, take a walk at a park or go for ice cream before the big night. Both you and your parents will feel better about your staying out late with someone you know.
• Find out about curfew and share it with your date/friends before prom night or parties. Know about after-curfew possibilities (the party at your friend’s house or early-morning breakfast at your place).
• Ask a trusted adult to be near a phone and available prom night or the night of a graduation party in case you need to call. Carry enough change with you or a cell phone to make several calls.
• Take your own or borrow your parents’ cell phone and slip it into your purse or pocket.

Certainly, teens know how to have fun without drinking.  They can dress up and go to late-night diners, pass around one-use cameras and use them up before the night is through, have parties at someone's house with plenty of snacks, go to late-night coffee houses, gather at friends’ houses or backyards after prom to dance, or participate in many other events in the community.

We want our graduates to master many skills and successfully make that transition from high school to college or that first “real” job. But what often gets in the way?

Research tells us that social pressures become overwhelming.  Social pressure is important for all adolescents.  We should never minimize the importance of parental influences. Numerous studies reveal the following:

• A study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found that although teens face peer pressure with regards to sex, the greatest influence over their decision whether or not to have sex may be parental influence.
• 38 percent of teens said parents were most influential, while 32 percent said that peers were a main reason for sexual activity. (Business Wire, April 26, 2001).
• Some studies have found that in some situations, peers’ opinions are more influential, while in others, parents’ opinions are influential (Steinberg, 2000).
• During these times, parents can influence adolescents by providing open two-way communication and by staying involved in all graduation and prom activities.

Peer influence must be understood in this context:

• One of the important aspects of adolescence is the increase in the amount of time spent with peers.  During adolescence, peer pressure begins to escalate, and conformity to peers will increase.
• 12-year-old girls are reporting that pressure to have sex comes from all sides of the peer spectrum: boys, other girls, their friends and the media. (Kittredge, 2000)

Students who think that their peers are having sex are two times more likely to have intentions of having sex next. These adolescents believe that their peers are starting a new behavior and that they must reflect this behavior to be considered normal. Thus the motivation for young adolescents to engage in sexual activity is more than likely because they do not want to be left behind peers. (Newswire, 2000).

As health providers and parents, we need never underestimate the importance of partner influence. Adolescents give in to sexual pressures for a number of reasons. For females there is an increase in the amount of time spent with males, including sports, hobbies and school activities.  Many peer groups function without parental supervision; around graduation time, as mentioned above, parties and social activities become activities where parents are not involved.

Certainly during graduation time, males and females put an emphasis on hanging out together, and dating leads to the influence of each partner to pressure the other into having sex.

• By high school, adolescents have experienced some type of sex in a relationship, and they often have had sexual intercourse by graduation.
• Overall, adolescents conform to their peers’ opinions when it comes to short-term, day-to-day matters of dress, music and leisure activities. When it comes to long-term issues such as educational and occupational plans, values, beliefs or ethics, adolescents really are influenced by their parents in a huge way.  We ought never to forget this.

Thus, clearly, adolescents are under peer pressure, parental pressure, and partner pressure. What can we do in our community schools? MADD suggests the following:

• Work with school officials to organize assemblies that send positive messages about abstaining from alcohol and other drugs.
• Work with school prom committees to plan fun and safe after-prom celebrations.
• Be open to using your home, with supervision, as one of these venues. Keep in mind the following: Among male high-school students, 39 percent say it is acceptable to attempt to force sex with a girl who is drunk or high. Even though youngsters are less likely than adults to drive after drinking, their crash rates are substantially higher.
• Lastly, alcohol is the No. 1 youth drug problem; it kills six times more people under 21 than all other illicit drugs combined.

We can help our kids make a pledge to join thousands of other teens who are heading for prom sober, and pledging to remain alcohol-free for prom and graduation parties this year. How about making T-shirts with this pledge on the back? We need to go out of our way to ensure that proms and other activities remain alcohol-free. In return for responsible choices, wouldn't it be great if our seniors received significant prom incentives and discounts? It is not too late to turn thoughtful plans into realities.