It's an all-too-familiar story. Teenager gets some freedom. Teenager gets drunk. Teenager dies from alcohol poisoning while his helpless friends watch.
This is what happens when we make kids so scared of getting caught with alcohol that they’re terrified to calls us when something goes wrong. This is what Brett Finbloom's family is living with today. They were supposed to be saying goodbye as he left for college. Instead they're saying goodbye forever. And it all could have been prevented with just one phone call ... if only the teenagers in that room weren't terrified that they were going to get in trouble.
Parents! If this isn't a sign that we need to change the whole discussion about alcohol, I don't know what is.
Ironically, Brett’s friends needn’t have worried about getting in trouble. They live in Indiana, a state where an underage drinker who calls for assistance for a friend is given full immunity from prosecution. The law protects the intoxicated kid as long as they wait for police to arrive -- essentially making sure the cops actually find their friends in time.
The law is a nice idea, and it should be spread to other states. But frankly parents shouldn’t need lawmakers to tell them that they should cut their kids a break when they call them drunk.
I’m not stupid. I don't want my kid going out and getting drunk, but face it: it's more or less a teenage rite of passage. Some 72 percent of teenagers admit they've consumed alcohol. Sure, your kid could be in that 28 percent, but do you really want to chance it?
We need to make the conversation less about “OMG, if I ever catch you, I’m going to kill you” and more about responsibility, more about safety. Kids shouldn't be so terrified of getting in trouble over a few cans of beer that they get behind the wheel after a few too many and drive their car straight into a tree. Kids shouldn't be so terrified of calling their parents and admitting they've gotten a little hammered that they let their friend die.
What have you told your kids you will do if you catch them drinking?
Image via stevendepolo/Flickr
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Comments 42
If an 18 year old isn't mature enough to drink then how on Earth do we say it's okay for an 18 year old to sign up for our military and go to war. That 18 year old comes home in the next year or so..and still can't (legally) have a Budlight. I'm not anti-military or anything like that, I'm an Air Force wife and the daughter of a retired Marine, but come on.
This story is so very sad and my heart breaks for everyone involoved. I remember WY tried to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18 and the governement stepped up and said they would cut off all federal funding if they changed it.
I won't go so far as to say they killed their friend. This doesn't sound like one of those stories where someone poured drinks down an unconscious person's throat. But those people let their friend die to save their own butts and now they have to live with that.
Also, since my kid is only four months old, I've not told her anything yet. What I will do is make sure that her actions have consequences. I think that concept is missing from too many people these days.
I am the parent that the kids call. The get taken care of for the night, then one hell of a lecture the next day. I usually take photos so they can see how bad they looked. It usually only takes once or twice for them to figure it out. My kids are the ones that tell their friends to call me if they're scared to tell their parents anything.
Kids are going to drink. Plain and simple, end of conversation. I agree that we need to focus "the alcohol/drugs conversation" more on responsibility than on punishment. No, I'm not going to be happy when my kids come home drunk, but it's going to happy (well the chances of it happening are pretty high anyways) and I'm not going to let them do it the stupid way. If they are going to do it, than they need to know that they can call us if they need help. It's sad that parents scare their children so badly about alcohol, especially when they are so scared that their encounter with it turns into a death. Very sad.
Did they know about the law? The one that says any underage person who calls for assistance for their friend isn't persecuted? Because I'm thinking they may not have. You don't hear about cases like this over in Europe where it isn't uncommon to have a beer with dinner. They have a very very different idea of how to handle alcohol.
Did they know about the law? The one that says any underage person who calls for assistance for their friend isn't persecuted? Because I'm thinking they may not have. You don't hear about cases like this over in Europe where it isn't uncommon to have a beer with dinner. They have a very very different idea of how to handle alcohol.