Parents, This is How You Can Curb Teenage Drinking And Driving

The stats…

By 12th grade, 42% of young people have had an alcoholic drink in the past month, and 25% have had at least one binge-drinking episode.

For women, binge drinking generally involves consuming four or more alcoholic drinks in two hours; for men, it's five or more drinks.

Extreme bingeing, a growing concern, refers to drinking up to 15 or more alcoholic drinks on a single occasion.

Young people who binge in 12th grade were, two years later, six times more likely to drive while impaired than someone who did not binge drink, and, four years later, more than twice as likely to drive while intoxicated.

These teens were also more likely to ride with an impaired driver and to experience alcohol-related blackouts and extreme binge drinking in subsequent years.

HOWEVER…

Turns out that the protective effect of parental monitoring and teen awareness of parents' attitudes about alcohol lasted as much as four years after leaving high school.

So, in effect, caring about your kids and showing them your own positive attitudes about alcohol can not only help your kids make better choices, but help them live longer, too.