When conversations about alcohol between parents and kids increase, underage drinking rates decrease. April is Alcohol Responsibility Month so it’s a great time to talk about about underage drinking prevention. Here’s how to have age-appropriate conversations with your elementary, middle, or high schooler so they’ll understand how alcohol affects growing brains and bodies and can make healthy and safe decisions.

How to Talk About Underage Drinking Prevention with Kids

As a parent, you’re the leading influence regarding decisions about underage drinking. Even though 67% of American youth report they’ve never consumed alcohol, 41% believe they will be faced with a decision regarding drinking or not drinking alcohol within the next year.

As a parent, it’s important to know the facts about why conversations about underage drinking prevention matter. Data shows:

• 93% of parents have talked to their kids at least once in the past year about alcohol consumption, up from 85% in 2022
• Nearly 1-in-3 parents (31%) identified themselves as the leading influence in their child(ren)’s decision to drink alcohol or not, followed by best friends (27%), and a distant social media (18%).
• 33% of children identify their parents as the leading influence on their decision to drink or not drink alcohol, followed by best friends (25%), and social media (17%).

Children need to understand the risks of underage drinking to their as the reason why they’re not allowed to drink alcohol until they’re 21. Not to mention the fact that it’s illegal and risky behavior!

Whether it’s your first time starting a conversation about underage drinking prevention or you’re revisiting it as your kids have gotten older, here’s how to approach this topic in an way so kids will listen.

Share Underage Drinking Facts with Elementary Ages

If this is a topic you’ve been wanting to address but haven’t been sure it’s appropriate for your elementary aged child, the truth is it’s time! If they’ve been around adults consuming alcohol, chances are they have questions. Here’s how to approach the topic of underage drinking prevention an age-appropriate way with your elementary aged child.

Young kids are observant and curious. They eye your colorful drink garnished with its tantalizing slice of fruit or fun umbrella and wonder why they can’t have a sip. Or they’ll just come out and ask. One summer when we were at a ballgame, our then 9 year old daughter asked if she could have a beer!

If they ask, “Grown-ups drink alcohol, why can’t I?” respond by sharing the facts:

• First, it’s against the law, and there’s a reason for that. Alcohol can be misused, and people must be old enough to take responsibility for drinking. Statistics show that adolescents who drink are highly prone to accidents and dangerous situations. Plus, you are young and your body and brain are still growing.*
• Certain privileges come with age. This is not limited to drinking alcohol but other things too. Adults are allowed to drink, drive cars, and vote. But adults have increased responsibilities in addition to the privileges that come with age: they go to work, pay taxes, and provide for their families.*

*From Say it Loud, Say it Proud: Communicating Effectively from AskListen Learn.org

These responses use kids’ curiosity as a springboard for a fact-based conversation about what alcohol is and its impact on the developing brain and body. Kids as young as 9 can understand that alcohol affects their developing brains AND its illegal to consume before the age of 21.

When kids know the facts, they can make healthy choices and practice safe decision making. Read up on the facts to know why kids and alcohol don’t mix.

Have these talks early and often. They serve as the foundation of a strong relationship so conversations about responsibility can continue as your child grows. 

Underage Drinking Prevention Conversation Ice Breakers for Middle Schoolers

Underage drinking prevention is often taught during substance abuse units in middle school health education classes. But it’s critical to follow up on what was learned in the classroom at home. After all, research shows when conversations about alcohol go up, underage drinking goes down!

Since 2003, conversations among parents and kids have increased 31%. During this same time, current underage drinking rates (meaning kids who have consumed alcohol in the past 30 days) have decreased 59%.

And not only are parents doing a great job, but so are kids! Conversations initiated by kids are also up over the past two decades, showing great progress.

Even though it may feel difficult to have a conversation with your middle schooler, this data shows they want to talk! They’re relying on you to be the steady force in their lives who can provide boundaries and structure during a time when their inner selves feel unsteady.

Great ways to talk about underage drinking with middle schoolers includes: 

• Letting them know that underage drinking is NOT the norm or a rite of passage
• Breaking the ice by seizing teachable moments like when my daughter asked for a beer in the ballpark
• Using current events to spark conversation
• Practicing ways to say “no” to underage drinking while discussing responsible decision making
• Capitalizing on times you’re together like in the car, during a meal, or winding down the day to talk
• Creating quick check in times. Here’s a great list of open-ended check in questions that promote social and emotional wellness.

According to Monitoring the Future (2024), binge drinking has reached record low levels. Less than 2% of 8th graders reported binge drinking in 2024. Eight out of ten 8th graders disapprove of their peers binge drinking. The high number of 8^th graders who view binge drinking as risky and disapprove demonstrate that conversations are effective in preventing underage drinking.

Continuing the Underage Drinking Prevention Conversation with High Schoolers

It’s reassuring to know that fewer American teens are consuming alcohol underage. In fact, now more than ever, most kids, including teens, don’t drink alcohol. Also, ease of access to alcohol is at an all-time low (Monitoring the Future, 2024). Even though statistics show consumption is down, conversations with your high schooler about underage drinking prevention are still important.   

From the beginning of high school to graduation, a lot happens! It’s an exciting and tumultuous 4 years as our teens explore a new level of independence as they get ready to leave the nest.

High schoolers have been taught the effects of alcohol on the brain thanks to school health curriculum. As parents, we can connect this learning to their future goals. Make sure your high schooler knows that alcohol affects their still developing brain and can get in the way of their future success.

While goals past high school may seem too distant to comprehend, start with a goal that’s more immediate- driving! It’s exciting for teens to start thinking about getting behind the wheel for the first time but with newfound freedom comes risk. Make sure you:

• Practice ways for your teen to refuse a drink or get out of a difficult situation
• Make sure your teen has a plan for what to do when they’re offered a drink at a friend’s house
• Insist they text/call you if they need a safe ride home. Make sure they know to never get in a vehicle with anyone who is drunk or impaired
• Set up a child profile through your ride share app on their phone just in case. This can serve as a backup plan for a safe ride home in case they’re worried about calling and waking you up, you’re on a work trip, etc. 
• Let them know what the consequences are for driving under the influence

We want to trust our teens with their new autonomy but also need to prepare them for a lifetime of making good decisions, especially when it comes to alcohol. Offer to help keep them safe and provide a sense of security without judgement.

Whether your child is looking forward to college, trade school, work, or a gap year, underage drinking can derail their post-graduation goal. Acknowledge the hard work your child is doing in high school and remind them of their goals, both big and small. Make sure they know how underage drinking can affect the goals they’re working hard to achieve.

As parents, it’s also important to know the laws about providing underage kids with alcohol. According to the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 58% of underage drinkers report that the alcohol they consumed came from family and friends.

Providing underage kids with alcohol in your home is called social hosting. Social hosting consequences vary from state to state make sure you know the laws in your state as well as other laws, such as Good Samaritan laws, designed to keep teens safe.

For more tips on talking to your kids about alcohol and underage drinking, visit Responsibility.org and AskListenLearn.org. You can also check out the other posts I’ve written to help guide you through these important conversations:

• How to Teach Kids to Make Good Decisions in Tough Situations
• What Do You Do When Your Kids Ask for a Sip of Your Drink?
• Why It’s Important to #TalkEarly When a 9 Year Old Asks for a Beer
• What Parenting Books Don’t Tell You About Creating a Lifetime of Conversations with Your Kids
• 8 Things Kids Can Learn from a Brewery Tour

I am a member of Responsibility.org’s Educational Advisory Board. I was not compensated or required to write this post and all opinions are my own.

The post Talking About Underage Drinking Prevention with Kids of All Ages appeared first on Tech Savvy Mama.

Ubisoft’s official X account for the Assassin’s Creed series popped off Tuesday afternoon as the massive franchise responded to offhand criticism from Elon Musk. The reply was a roast for the ages.

The interaction happened when Musk responded to a tweet from Mark Kern (@Grummz), a former Blizzard developer who is now more widely known for his support of Gamergate. Kern posted a screenshot of a recent ad post from political commentator and streamer Hasan Piker. The post, which is tagged as an ad, shows an image of Piker dressed up like a ninja and holding a katana photoshopped onto the cover of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which was released March 20 by Ubisoft. “PLAYING @assassinscreed SHADOWS ONCE MORE!! GET IN NOW FOR GAMING!!!” the post reads.

Kern posted the screenshot, taken from a Bluesky account that automatically reposts Piker’s tweets, with his commentary: “You can tell a lot about Ubisoft @Ubisoft with how much money they are throwing at terrorist-platforming streamers.” Musk responded twice: first, “Hasan is a fraud,” then, “‘Sell-out’ would be more accurate. Objectively, he is promoting a terrible game just for the money.”

Cue the legendary response from the official Assassin’s Creed account: “Is that what the guy playing your Path of Exile 2 account told you?”

The account is referencing the widespread belief that Musk’s ostensibly excellent performance in several video games is due to him paying skilled gamers to boost his account while he works on dismantling the U.S. government in the background. This became a rumor after Musk claimed he has one of the most powerful Path of Exile 2 characters in the world, then streamed himself playing like a noob despite having god-tier gear that takes hundreds of hours, or superb gameplay, to acquire. Later, YouTuber NikoWrex posted a video that seemingly shows his DMs on X with Elon Musk. The video shows messages from Musk’s account that say the best players in Diablo and Path of Exile games “require multiple people playing the account to win a leveling race.” When NikoWrex asked whether he’s level-boosted in Path of Exile 2 or Diablo 4, the Musk account responded with a “100” emoji.

Clearly, the Assassin’s Creed team is not hiding in the shadows like the game’s characters. Kern responded to the fiery takedown — which got about 20 times the number of likes as Musk’s most-liked reply — with a screenshot of a PCGamesN story reporting on Shadows’ sales numbers. (Kern made sure to omit the outlet’s name in his screenshot — another practice Musk has been bodied for on social media.) “Our game is out,” the Assassin’s Creed X account responded, undoubtedly poking fun at Kern for his in-progress, unreleased game for which he launched a crowdfunding campaign eight years ago.

The PCGamesN story Kern screenshotted quotes an analyst, Rhys Elliott, who said the early sales numbers “do NOT reflect the smash hit Ubisoft really needs” and posited that the game hasn’t broken even yet. In contrast, Video Games Chronicle reported Monday that the game represents the second-biggest launch in the series and Ubisoft’s best-ever day-one launch on the PlayStation Store, and it garnered a significant amount of PC downloads. The game also got widespread critical acclaim from English-language outlets as well as gaming outlets based in Japan, despite early concerns about the game’s cultural and historical accuracy. That’s not to mention the handful of X users claiming that Ubisoft’s recent social media strategy has tipped them toward buying the game.

The narrative that Shadows isn’t doing well is one that’s been hard-fought by keyboard warriors who first criticized the game’s inclusion of the Black samurai Yasuke. In truth, Ubisoft’s inclusion of Yasuke is either boosting the game up, or not making a difference. The game is getting played a lot, and maybe it’ll get played even more now that Ubi has one-shotted Musk on his own social media platform.

Many phrases are used to describe the different types of parents: tiger mom, lawnmower dad, and helicopter or snowplow parent. I never felt that any of them described me until I heard about lighthouse parenting a few years ago.

What is Lighthouse Parenting?

How Lighthouse Parenting Differs from Other Parenting Styles

When I first heard about the characteristics of a lighthouse parent, I finally felt there was a parenting style to describe me. Lighthouse parenting is:

• Balancing care with protection
• Guiding children so they don’t hit the rocks and sink
• Being steadfast, always keeping watch
• Providing warmth and rules

Through the years, I’ve always provided guidance to my kids, using my background in psychology and education to provide warmth and rules while always keeping watch. Now that they’re in college, I can happily say I’ve raised my kids to be people my husband and I want to hang out with. We marvel at what they’re doing as they live their best independent lives in college and know they’re going to continue to do more amazing things out in the world.

Lighthouse Parenting: A How-To Guide

Guiding kids and tweens through their formative years has always been a delicate balancing act. We know parenting is filled both with the joys and the challenges of their growing independence. Today’s parents face unique hurdles: ever-present screens, negative impact of social media, looming threat of climate change, and fears around school violence. 

We want our kids to grow to be healthy, strong, resilient, and productive individuals but how? Fortunately Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg has literally written the book on lighthouse parenting!

Interview with Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg about Lighthouse Parenting

Years ago I served as a Mission Partner for the Center for Parent and Teen Communication (CPTC) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Ginsburg, the Founding Director of CPTC and regularly spoke to us Mission Partners about how to reframe the narrative surrounding adolescence. From Dr. Ginsburg I learned strategies and skills that helped strengthen my connections to my kids and positioned me to guide them, and students I was teaching at the time, to be their best selves. Dr. Ginsburg always shared the importance of ensuring our young people thrive – not just survive – and now he’s the author of the new Lighthouse Parenting book.

In his book, Dr. Ginsburg offers a practical and compassionate approach to navigating uncertain moments of parenting while also setting the foundation for lifelong relationships. I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Ginsburg about how lighthouse parenting can be a balanced alternative to extreme parenting trends and how it can be used to raise emotionally healthy kids who thrive academically, are resilient, and maintain lifelong connections with their parents. 

Tech Savvy Mama (TSM)— Every couple of years there’s a new parenting style that gets a lot of attention. Helicopter parents, free range parenting, and tiger moms have had their moment. Lighthouse Parenting presents something different— an action plan for putting balanced parenting into place. How does this approach differ from past trends?

Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg (Dr. Ginsburg)— Lighthouse parenting isn’t a trend. Trends are temporary fascinations that often react to prior ones–like you mentioned, helicopter parenting arose and in response free-range parenting emerged. Trends are fueled by popular opinion and therefore swing like pendulums. In contrast, lighthouse parenting is based on decades of scientific studies on how to best balance the key elements in parenting: being loving, responding to your child’s needs, and setting clear and fair boundaries for their safety.

TSM— Why do you think the lighthouse is such a powerful metaphor explaining how to raise a child with love and a sense of balance?

Dr. Ginsburg— Like a lighthouse, this kind of parent is a guide for their children–one that is always there, even when it’s hard to see and especially when the waters get choppy.

Lighthouse parents’ love is a landmark that their children, who are always steering their own ships, can nevertheless refer to and rely on for direction and support. The beam of a lighthouse is periodic, unlike a searchlight or a spotlight, and this constant yet dynamic presence encourages a healthy balance between a child’s blossoming sense of independence and grounding sense of security.

The lighthouse metaphor also imparts more concrete guidelines to parents: Send your signals clearly. Be aware of dangers and particularly those that may only be visible to you. Understand that for your child to thrive they must learn how to sail the waves by themselves, and accept you are on the shore. Always extend a safe harbor for them.

TSM— Today’s youth are faced with a host of issues that their parents never had to deal with, from social media and cyberbullying to the fear of school shootings or other disturbing news events. Do you think these factors change how people should parent or are the fundamentals still the same?

Dr. Ginsburg— The fundamentals never change. The best protection for a child or teen is the knowledge that the person who knows them the best–with all their strengths and challenges–loves them. That there will always be someone who will stand by them, support them, and guide them no matter the circumstances. This is the most essential element of parenting. 

To this end, parenting centered on these fundamentals cultivates relationships that will last beyond the teen years far into the future. Our children will grow into adults and in addition to guiding them we’ll want to become more interdependent. The key to that is not being controlling, respecting their need to become independent, and serving as a guide. Think of it from their perspective: If someone tries to control you, you want to get away from them. When someone guides you, you want them involved in your life forever.

TSM— Throughout the book, you urge parents to consider their child at the age of 35. Why?

Dr. Ginsburg— When we parent for the adult, we look at success differently than when we parent for the child. As children, we overemphasize their immediate happiness, their academics, and we forget what else matters. When we think about the 35-year-old we’re setting up for success, happiness–for example–takes on a different meaning. Happiness means having a sense of meaning and purpose. It means being able to collaborate, to communicate, and to resolve conflicts with others. Happiness means having resilience, tenacity, humility. Keeping both the 5- and 35-year-old in mind allows us to focus on what matters most across a whole lifetime–and to realize most of this comes into play later. Taking the long view takes some of the pressure off us now.

TSM— It is incredibly hard for parents to see their child of any age struggling. So, why is it so important to let children fail sometimes? And what happens if a parent doesn’t allow it? How much failure is too much, and might it cause a child to lose confidence?

Dr. Ginsburg— We never want our children to fail in a way that puts them in direct danger.  You didn’t let your child put their hands on the stove when they were two and you shouldn’t let them get into a car unprepared to drive safely at 16. We have to set limits beyond which we do not allow failure–and then allow experimentation and learning within those limits. Childhood and adolescence are the times to learn who you are and how to recover when you stumble. If we don’t allow our children to stumble, they’re not going to learn how to get back up when they fall.

So now is the time—they’re under your watchful eyes. If you protect them from learning life’s lessons early on, they’re going to learn later when you’re not close by, and the consequences are going to be much higher. We all want our children to thrive–and failure should be seen as an opportunity for growth. We allow failure now so that they learn how to improve, how to recover, and how to make the most of second chances.

TSM— Very few parents can say, “I have an abundance of time, and I’d like to spend it reading another parenting book.” What does Lighthouse Parenting offer that other books about raising kids don’t?

Dr. Ginsburg— In the book I explain how parents can be steady rather than stifling guides for their children, which promotes a successful parent-child relationship that spans every life stage. Lighthouse Parenting is an investment in the future— it offers not only a smoother adolescence, but a mutually reliant, healthy relationship with your adult child far into the future.

Huge thanks to Dr. Ginsburg for taking the time to share his wisdom. Lighthouse Parenting is a book that provides practical, actionable parenting advice and is full of evidence-based strategies. I love that it empowers parents to foster open communication, mutual respect, and clear expectations while nurturing their child’s emotional well-being.

Lighthouse Parenting can be purchased on Amazon and everywhere else books are sold.

I received a copy of Lighthouse Parenting for review. No compensation was received for this post. Amazon affiliate links are included in this post.

The post Lighthouse Parenting: Tips for Raising Emotionally Healthy Kids appeared first on Tech Savvy Mama.