Know Your Teen’s Real Party Plan

Will your teen celebrate Millennium Eve with a little drinking?

Since we won’t have a new millennium to toast more than once in our lifetime, many of us will hit the parties Friday night for a rip-roaring celebration.

In some cases, the teens will party too. Do you know for sure what your teen will be doing that night?

After 30 years in the newspaper business, I can’t recall once where we didn’t have a story about teens either getting arrested for drunken New Year’s Eve parties or, worse, in some kind of accident on the road after a party. Almost every instance involved parents who were surprised their teens were someplace where alcohol was in abundance.

Here’s a suggestion from experts: If your teens say they’ll be going to a chaperoned party that night, make them prove it. What are the chaperons’ names? Their phone numbers?

“Absolutely do not hesitate to intervene in your teenager’s life,” said Fritzie Canas, who works with teen alcohol programs for the Northern County YMCA. “Too many parents simply do not know what their teenage children are up to.”

Teen drinking statistics can be startling. Drug Strategies, a national nonprofit research group, published a recent report showing that at least half of high school seniors have had something alcoholic to drink in the past month. It also says 31% of young women who drink in the 1990s started by the time they were 14, compared to just 7% in the 1960s in a similar study.

Even if you are convinced your youngster doesn’t drink, county alcohol officials point out the severe danger of peer pressure. Maybe your teens only drink a little, but they’re with other teens driving who have had much more to drink.

“Teens don’t always have the skills to be assertive and say no in such situations,” said Karen Perdue, who works with the county Health Care Agency’s alcohol prevention programs.

But Perdue points out another serious concern on New Year’s Eve--date rape. Perdue says studies show that between 50% and 75% of date rapes of teens and college-age students involve alcohol.

“The danger is not always that the perpetrator is drinking but that the victim is drinking,” Perdue said. “That’s when the girl lets her guard down, or her mind isn’t clear enough to assess the situation she’s in.”

All experts I talked with suggest communities too have responsibilities to teens.

“Teens who want to drink need access to alcohol,” Canas said. “That means people who sell alcohol have a special responsibility to make sure they aren’t selling to minors.”

She also believes it’s the sellers’ responsibility to be on the lookout for “shoulder-tappers.” Those are the teens who approach adult strangers in the parking lot of a liquor or convenience store and coax them into buying alcohol for them. County officials expect huge shoulder-tapping on New Year’s Eve.

The city of Fullerton has put much thought into the problem. It’s providing a Friday night family-oriented outdoor party called “First Night 2000.” (Harbor Boulevard downtown, beginning at 7 p.m.)

That leads to the best suggestion of all: Your teens won’t be drinking New Year’s Eve if they’re with you. Why not forego your own parties and celebrate with them, even if it’s at home. What better way to go into the new millennium than together.

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 564-1049 or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com.