How do YOU keep your teen out of the vodka bottle?
Now that my kids are 14 and 7, I got the Phillips head screwdriver out on Sunday and removed the child-proof latches from the bathroom cabinets.
Freedom!
But now apparently I need to apply some kind of latch to the vodka, maybe to prescription meds in the house, and quite possibly to any cigars my husband might have lying around. Why? Because as I said at the beginning, I have a 14 year old.
A few weekends ago, I was in bed reading a book (John Steinbeck's The Red Pony, about an innocent young boy and his beloved horse), when I heard an ambulance, and sirens. Sounded like they were heading our way.
They were.
A group of young teens, my son included, were at a friend's house a block down the road, and her mom wasn't home. Some of them guzzled the vodka. One of the teens passed out, several vomited. A neighbor checked on them, found the grisly scene, and called 911. The sober kids, my son among them, were told that one of their friends "might not make it.'' Three of them were taken by ambulance to the hospital.
Did they learn a lesson? I hope they did. And so did we, the parents.
A lot of the important work raising kids is done by the time your child is 14. You've built the foundation, and when your kid's a teen-ager, you find out how sturdy it is.
Is there anything you can really do to stop a teen from drinking?
Will a child-proof latch work?
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