2: Talking about alcohol and staying connected. Should we be letting our teenagers drink and what should we be telling them about it? Also, how to stay connected.

Rachel Richards: 0:02

Hello, I'm Rachel Richards and welcome to teenagers untangled where we combine research by experts and ideas from other parents to solve your problems. As a parenting coach, I saw the incredible power of getting people together to share ideas and support each other. So welcome, pull up a chair. And let's begin. On today's show, we discuss a question sent in from listener Alex, which is how do I stay connected with my teenager when they argue and don't seem to want me anymore? But first alcohol and your teenager? When do you let them start drinking? Is it the legal age? Or is it younger? How much do you let them drink? When and where are they allowed to drink? Do you even have any control over it? With me to help us tackle these topics, again is Susie Asli, who is a teacher of mindfulness and mother to three teenagers, including twins. Hi, Susie, thanks for being here with us.

Susie Asli: 0:54

Hi, Rachel.

Rachel Richards: 0:55

Now let's start with the official advice. The NHS says children shouldn't drink alcohol until at least 15 years old, and up to the age of 17it t should be rarely and never more than once a week. Meanwhile, the US Department of Health is on record saying underage drinking can cause alterations in the structure and function of the developing brain. Now this is an interesting one because whilst teenagers become legally adult at 18, their brain still have that extreme teenage plasticity until they're almost 25. Finally, in a study of nearly 10,000 Students carried out by Minnesota University, as binge drinking goes up. grade point average goes down. Susie, what do you think; you've got a 16 year old?

Susie Asli: 1:40

Yeah, well, that was terrifying. I have a 16 year old who has, you know, he goes to parties now. And, you know, they drink at parties. He doesn't particularly like it. He has drunk and he wouldn't mind me saying this. He has done quite a lot once. In my house. Which was a good, I think a good way of doing it, if there is a good way of doing it, is in a safe environment.

Rachel Richards: 2:14

Did you know? Had you discussed it beforehand? Did he just find the alcohol? You bought the alcohol?

Unknown: 2:22

He found it and it was all very harmless. But it's my approach was very much I know if you're drinking and he was with a friend, and do you need some help? Rather than, telling him off? How do you feel? Can I make you a cup of tea and toast; kind of come inside.

Susie Asli: 2:46

Did he get the message at all that this wasn't really the right way of doing things? How did you get that Well, I mean, that message was pointless in the moment, because message across? he wasn't really able to converse properly. It wasn't that bad. It was one of those things where, you know, I had the opportunity to have a think about how I wanted to tackle it. And then the next day, how do I bring this up? So I showed them what a shot looks like. He wasn't using shots, he was just drinking, and they were drinking vodka with Coke, which, you know, is quite easy to drink down, isn't it? And, you know, not really knowing how much it was. And then we had to discuss that and they understood that this is how much you've drunk. They didn't eat enough beforehand. They know all of that, but just reminding, this is what you need to do so you can be healthy and make better choices next time. And so that it's, you know, it's a one off it's really not a big deal. But it would be a big deal if you did that every weekend.

Rachel Richards: 4:12

And that's a really interesting point. Because when it comes to parenting, for example, going over things, actually makes a big difference. Because often we don't learn things once; you have to be reminded, and not in a nagging way, but a sort of. So do you remember that because

Susie Asli: 4:29

It's the sort quite similar. I mean, I haven't lived it's very easy to begin drinking,, and there are also so many pressures. I think parents don't all concur on this by any stretch of the imagination and my younger daughter. I hosted a party for her at the age of 13 and this party was the end of school party so very exciting. My reasoning was I don't want to be doing the big parties when they're 16 because it's much more complicated and difficult. So I wanted to look like the cool parent, without having all the drugs or alcohol problems to deal with, because they are, they're fraught. But even then one parent said to me, oh, it's really nice for them to have a can of something like cider or beer, just that they feel like they've had something grown up. And so I sort of put that out in the discussion group, and I had one parent objecting very strongly to any of the children having any alcohol; particularly her child. And she said,'nothing before, she's 15, I don't even want to start her on that road.' And my, my response was, I completely understand and so no alcohol then. And if you've got one parent like that in the group, you just have to go with what the one parent says. And in a way, it was a bit of a relief, because it just took away that decision for me. But other parents seem to have a much more comfortable relationship. I've been to parties, or to people's houses, where my teenager is sitting around the table, and people are pouring drinks for them. And I'm saying, No, way. Wait, no, she's 13, OK, she doesn't look 13. And they just look at me and say, 'come on, lighten up'. Often people cite the French response, that we all know, where you have to bring them up socially responsibly drinking and then then less likely to go off the rails later. Well, don't Aric Sigmund said that people would be surprised to find that in France, they've been reviewing that opinion completely, and it's not so much the case anymore. in Denmark for 10 years, but we lived there for years and, and they're more relaxed, or they used to be more relaxed with alcohol, my children's still go over there regularly. And teenagers can buy alcohol earlier, and there's lots of teenage drinking. And the idea is that you know, if you introduce them younger then they can manage it. but statistics show that it's the opposite, that there is more of a problem with teenage drinking, because they start earlier.

Rachel Richards: 7:03

what an interesting point, because again, quoting Dr. Sigmund, because he had such an impact on me when I heard him talking years before my children were teenagers. And he relayed huge amounts of research into this. And he said, parents are very scared to tell their children, they shouldn't be doing something, don't smoke, don't drink, don't take drugs, whatever. Because they fear that if they do that, then the children are more likely to rebel and go and, and do it. And he said, all the research they've done states the opposite, that if you tell your children, I'd rather you didn't drink or you don't take drugs or you know, Smokings bad for you, and I don't want you to do it, the less likely they are to do it, and if they do do it, they will do far less of it,

Susie Asli: 7:46

In the moment when they're offered something that they're unsure about, then they go into survival, Do I want this? Do I not want this? And then they will rely on what's in their baggage, which is the you know, subconscious. Okay, mom said that mum or dad said that or whatever. And that will be what will they'll bring up and even if they make a different choice, and they do it anyway, that will still be in there.

Rachel Richards: 8:15

You're so you're so right, Susie. And actually that happened to my younger daughter, she had gone to a new school. She was two weeks in and decided she wanted to go out with her friends. And of course, I want her to have fun and meet up with friends. These are 13 year olds, and the girls decided that they she wanted to drink. And my daughter's response was, I think that's illegal. They're in a park and the other girl said, no, let's get those boys over there to buy us some. And I said to her so 'Wait, who were these boys? How old were they?' And she said they were 20. And I said those aren't boys, they're men. And I explained to her what jailbait is and that this is a terrible thing to ask a man to do, but they did it anyway. They drank the entire bottle of vodka. One girl was responsible for drinking half the bottle. The lovely thing is my daughter told me all of this, as soon as she got in the car, she said, Oh my God, this has just happened. And the other thing that happened was, when it was discovered - the school separated each child, the one who drank half a bottle, obviously was very sick, and was sent home, vomiting, and everybody said my daughter didn't drink, which is what my daughter had told me. And I said to her, wow, really? I'm curious. Why didn't you drink? And she said because you've told me that it's not safe and it's not. It's not good for me and you don't want me to. She was self parenting. She was relying on the information she'd got from me. And she said to me, what would you have done if had drunk. And I just said, Well, I would have been really disappointed. And she said, What? You wouldn't have shouted at me? And I said, Well, no, I'm not going to shout at you. But I think you're better than that. And I think you know enough about the the problems with drinking at your age, because you're not safe. Because if you're in a park, a public park, first of all, this is your hood. So all these people, you may not know the people who see you, but they're going to know you eventually. And they're going to know you're the girl who sits in the park, drinking alcohol. And also, you're very vulnerable as soon as you start drinking, and I think this goes for boys as well as girls. And I think people give boys a free pass. But I actually think if you're drinking in a public place, young men are far more likely to get into fights, they're far more likely to have all sorts of other problems happen. If they've been drinking, they're far more likely to possibly do things that are offensive to other girls, you know. So I love your approach of actually providing a safe environment where they're going to access these things.

Susie Asli: 11:00

I think it's the difference in age, isn't it? I mean, my son was 16, I think it's very different from a 13 year old. So I would have probably responded in a different way. I don't know what I'd have done, because I haven't experienced that. But it's idifferent. But it's kids are curious, and kids deal with rules differently. Like I have three kids, and they deal with rules very differently. You know, one of them would be Oh, mom said that, that's the rules I will follow that. And others will be like, Oh, that's the rules, I'm going to do the complete opposite, because that's more fun. We have different personalities. So it's, trying to do it - as in anything - without shaming and without judging too much, and doing it from a place of concern.

Rachel Richards: 11:47

That's possibly why my daughter took the approach she did because I'd also said, don't ever drink without eating don't take this cultural desire to stand outside on the pavement just drinking to get drunk. So she had said to the girls, oh, we need to eat something. But again, my point is that I obviously had started having this discussion with her very young; well, before she was ever going to be having to deal with these problems - and it protected her because in the instance where she was confronted with a difficult situation, because even as adults, we get confronted with situations where we think oh, you know, you get pressurized, Oh, aren't you drinking? Why aren't you drinking? Having some kind of defense is going to make it easier for them if they don't want to. And if like you did with your son where you sat down and said how can I support you and our children feel like we're on their side and that the only reason we're saying this stuff is because we want them to be safe.

Susie Asli: 12:52

Yes, not catastrophizing, it I mean,I've made many mistakes. Hundreds, and, you know, working out well which one is okay? You've done that once. It's really not the end of the world and if it becomes a regular thing, or it's clearly an issue that is different. And again, it always comes back to the connection you have with your kid.

Rachel Richards: 13:16

Yes, our email address is help at teenagers untangled.com We'd love to hear from you. Now this next session is about tangling with teenagers a chance for us to take a particular problem and try to offer you some solutions. In this episode, we tackle a question sent in by Alex, how do I stay connected with my teenager when they argue and don't seem to want me anymore? I mean, I was talking to my hairdresser about this the other day. He's the same age as me and has clearly lived a rock'n'roll life. He's got the tattoos, he's got the ear piercings and the hairstyle. He said his daughter has told him he's boring and doesn't want to talk to him. Ouch. And he said, How can she feel that way? I used to do the hair of of all these supermodels. I used to be on the fashion shows and things and he said when he mentioned their names she just looked at me went like who?

Susie Asli: 14:12

totally irrelevant. Your dad you're boring. And

Rachel Richards: 14:16

so Susie, what do you think? How do you stay connected with your kids?

Susie Asli: 14:20

It's hard, isn't it? I mean, I have three kids. I have two who are almost 14 and one who's 16 and they've you know different personalities that different genders I think that makes a difference too. And I have noticed I did notice I kind of felt I went from because I parent my kids on my own you know went from that I just want five minutes apiece on my own you know, go to the loo shut the door. Just two minutes please. No one talked to me. And then overnight, I was felt I was standing in the kitchen going anyone want to hang out and they were gone. I don't know how that there wasn't a transition. It wasn't I I think and suddenly they're you know, they have their own worlds which is totally normal, healthy and brilliant. And, but it can be really difficult. And I think the more you push into bond the connection, the more they go by. And then you realize their social life so much better than Oh, god. Yeah. And suddenly, I did read a thing. What was it, it was a really brilliant quote that really resonated it was parenting teenagers is a part time activity and full time availability, which really resonated so you have to be available available at any point, you're not so hands on all the time. And it's because we're not suddenly we have more time or more, more space in a way, but we still need to be available. And I think we just need to partly Get A Life ourselves. I'm up for that. And partly appreciate the little, little moments that we get. So I've talked to other friends about this, you know, when you have a car journey, especially especially it sounds very sexist. I know. But especially with boys Maybe. Or maybe just because my eldest is avoiding car journeys are awesome. You know, you have, nobody has to have eye contact, and you can have amazing conversations. Maybe it's only 10 minutes, and maybe that actually fills the hole rather than going I want a whole afternoon with you.

Rachel Richards: 16:25

Because it's not it's not about quality, or quantity. It's about quality. Yeah.

Susie Asli: 16:28

And just checking in just checking in. And then I find with mine, I don't know if you find with yours, but my definitely my eldest wakes up at about 11pm When I really would like to be crawling into bed. And sometimes, you know, you just I just feel I have to drop everything and go, Okay, well, let's do a fry up at 11pm. Because you're going to talk, and you might not want to for a whole week. Kind of grabbing the moments, I

Rachel Richards: 16:54

think, and what you said about being in the car. I think the most excruciating question I've ever had was when my children were sitting in the back of the car, and I was sitting in the front, because I think that they took that moment and my husband wasn't there, they took that moment because there was going to be no eye contact. And we want to know what that was talking about sex. For me, I the way I approached it was I'd years ago heard about something called a love bond, where you reconnect my husband in 24 hours with your young child. And this was specifically related to young children who were causing problems. I tried it with my oldest child, it was a disaster. And I thought that didn't work. And then when they got a bit older, I thought, I try that again. So what I did was I said to both my girls who turned double digits, and we're going to have some time away on our own. And I'm fortunate enough to be able to, you know, book a weekend away with my children. So we I got them to choose where they thought would be really good. The first child came with her bucket list, which was the Great Wall of China and okay, that's your bucket list, darling, that's not

Susie Asli: 18:06

local cafe will do.

Rachel Richards: 18:09

But, but I started off by saying, I'm really I love that you are aiming high. So keep that that can be your bucket list is not happening. And with each of them, I went away for an extended weekend, just the two of us. And it was a chance to change gears, it was a challenge to reconnect where we were simply one to one, talking about anything walking in the streets, sitting in cafes. And it was very interesting, the sort of sorts of questions that came up during that weekend. And I use the time to be very explicit about how our relationship was changing. And to say to them, we I am no longer going to be telling you what you should do all the time. Because you don't need that you're now turning into a young adult, you are going to be a woman and you're now in that training ground where it's up to you to start making decisions that that will support you for the rest of your life. So my job is to sit next to you and discuss things and question what you're doing and help him support you. Yeah, and they and it's been the making of our relationships where we're now with both of my children, I'm very close with them because they, they realize it took the second one longer to get that and she still there was a there was a there was a moment where I realized she'd been lying to me and I was very upset about it. And I challenged her and all she said and I think she'd been told by her friends that's what you do kind of like your parents. And I told her that the impact of lying that once you've been lied to once it's very hard to regain that trust. And I think you have to have these difficult conversations and tell them that this is how it impacts your relationship. And then I said to her Sweetie, you know these friends of yours that are giving you a FEIS, I have no doubt that they care about you. And they're important to you and they're special. But let me tell you the 13. And they didn't know, they didn't really know anything more than you know. And I've got another 14 years on that, and of life experience, and there's no one in the world, who's going to love you as much as I love you and want you to succeed as much as I want you to succeed. So we need to have this open channel where I'm going to, I'm going to just give you some help.

Susie Asli: 20:33

I love that. And I love the idea of spending time with each kid on their own. And, you know, it's a huge privilege to be able to do that. And there's lots of people who wouldn't, whether they're parenting alone, or, but it's, it doesn't need to be like, I've done, I've done that sometimes with my kids too, which has been wonderful. Really difficult, because apparently, trying to organize it, but it doesn't have to be a big thing. It could just be, you know, at home half an hour, we're gonna sit and do a puzzle together or, or watch a movie together or, you know, just sits for, you know, half an hour, but just the feeling that you are prioritizing them. And you have that space that is uninterrupted, I think is really important and really beautiful. But it doesn't, it doesn't have to be complicated, and they do appreciate it. And also the, I don't know, sometimes when they get older as well, we have these great ideas, and we'll do this we'll do that and, and they might not want to. And, and I have a little mantra, which I practice, which sometimes works sometimes doesn't. Nothing is personal. When they get to a certain age, it's not personal. If they say to you, I don't want to do that. That sounds really boring. I want to go and do that. It's so it can be quite painful. You know, they hate me, though. They're not like me, but you know, they don't want to it's a rejection, isn't it? But it isn't. It's just it's just being them. They wanted to go into something else. It's not personal. I mean, it can be but it's 95% not personal. And it's really helpful to remember that.

Rachel Richards: 22:06

Yes. And when when when your child says, Oh, can you come into Tik Tok with me? And I don't really feel like it. Right? Yeah. That needs to be both of you realizing that they're asking you to do something with them. And you can't always be like, No, we're not it's not our job to be always be be doing things we don't want to do. But actually explaining that and saying, you know, that's really important to you. But it's important to me, and I don't really find it enjoyable. Yeah,

Susie Asli: 22:30

but let's do this. Instead of being curious about the people they're becoming because the key because, you know, they, they are their own person. And it's it's really fun hearing what they think about stuff. And then as they're experimenting with their thoughts, their ideas. Yeah, amazing. And one day, they'll grunt and not say very much, and that's fine. But tomorrow, maybe they'll come with some great political opinion. And you go whoa. And then they go back to grunting the next day, you know, and that is just all part of it.

Rachel Richards: 23:04

Next week on teenagers untangled in the words of a brilliant book, how do you listen so your teenagers will talk? And how do you talk so your teenagers will listen? And we tackle Helen's question. My 16 year old is dating and says he's in love. What do I do if he brings her home and wants her to stay the night? Do I put them in the same room or separate them? What would you advise Helen to do? You can reach us by using the email help at teenagers untangled.com or join our discussion forum on Facebook. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and tell your friends.

Susie Asli: 23:36

Get back now.