Hanover summit will focus on underage drinking
Underage drinking and teen drug use aren't new problems, but Hanover County officials are once again inviting the community to join them in coming up with ways to address the issues.
The county and the ICARE Coalition, which is made up of parents, teachers, prevention specialists, youth leaders and law enforcement, are hosting a "Prevention Summit" Oct. 8-9 at the conference room at the Hanover Human Services Center in Ashland. The event is free to the public.
Martha Lambert, coordinator of community education for Hanover Community Services, said that unlike past community meetings about teen issues, this one will focus on data, such as the number of DUIs involving teens and survey answers about teen behaviors.
The first day will allow participants to use data to look at the effect of underage drinking on Hanover communities, while the second day will focus on prevention strategies.
"Underage drinking is rampant in all our communities," Lambert said. Parents tend to be involved in their children's lives when they are young, she said, but as children grow and take on more responsibility, parents scale back their involvement.
Lambert said the meeting will help parents learn how to navigate their children's teen years. She said underage drinking often is a sign of other issues in a teen's life.
The two days will be led by prevention specialists Melodie Fearnow-Kenney and Gail Maddox-Taylor.
Maddox-Taylor said yesterday that every community has a different culture, and that's why it's important to know the data about your own community before you try to face the problems and create prevention strategies.
She said technology is making that data more accessible, and it's helping law enforcement, parents and others come up with more effective ways of curbing these issues.
"We used to do things because we think they're working," Maddox-Taylor said. Now, "we're getting a true picture . . . [and] we use real data to come with real strategies."
Contact Holly Prestidge at (804) 649-6945 or
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Reader Reactions
Prohibition not only doesn’t work, it makes the problem worse. Lowering the drinking is a nightmare. Statistics clearly show that the 21 law saves lives. The ultimate objective as LD said is to have the parents involved very early on in the kids decision making development so they are in a pattern of making sound decisions by the time they go to college.
Scotland, England and other countries are actually debating raising the drinking age back to 21 because their societal problems related to alcohol are so severe.
If we can keep a kid from using alcohol until they are 21, AND they have the active involvement of a parent helping them to use very moderately, we have done a great job.
These days, however, when binge drinking is starting routinely at age 13 because parents are NO SHOWS, we are helping destroy the brains of kids who brain (frontal lobe especially) keep maturing until they are 25. If we can get kids to delay first use until 21 or later, they are MANY, MANY times less likely to develop lifelong problems with alcohol or drugs, since most use more than one substance at a time now. Talk to you kids, PLEASE! Tell them the dangers of giving in now.
I have to agree that prohibition is a fool’s errand. Alcohol is readily available in the USA, and teaching your child responsibility will go much further than trying to enforce a prohibition.
What happens when your child first experiences alcohol without proir knowledge? We teach children many things, such as how to drive; unless you are a teetotaler, drinking has to be one of them.
As a resident advisor to freshmen for several years at College, it was painfully obvious which students showed up with a little “experience under their belt” with regards to alcohol. The ones who had been brought up to drink responsibly with their parents, and not to excess, generally weren’t much of a problem. The children of the strict Baptists, and those with little no experience with alcohol, generally were train wrecks their first semester. My children will be brought up to enjoy the pleasure of alcohol in moderation.
Why not lower the drinking age AND spend more time with your kids?
Why are you equating alcohol consumption with criminal activity? Homicide, theft, robbery and embezzlement are areas of public life? Man is that dumb.
Memo to revnhoj: May we apply your insight regarding “prohibition doesn’t work” to other areas of public life, say, the prohibition against homicide, theft, robbery and embezzlement? Judging by your moniker, if insights such as this fills your preaching, I suspect many are exercising their free choice to go elsewhere on Sunday mornings.
Lowering the drinking age will not help. What will help is for parents to get more involved in their childrens lives!!! Parents need to be parents to their kids not friends. Know who your kids are hanging with and get to know the parents!! Doing things with your children, regardless of their age, never hurts either! It all starts at home-your kids are what you make them, whether you believe it or not!! Parents need to step up to the plate and be parents-mine did and I thank them for it everyday!!! Stay involved with your kids-it is fun and very rewarding!!!!!
The solution is to either reduce the legal drinking age back to 18 or, like many civilized societies, get rid of a drinking age altogether. Just like sex and drugs, the more forbidden it is, the more desirable it is.
When will people get their heads out of the sand and understand prohibition doesn’t work? Never has and never will.
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