Living: When Parents Just Say No

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That sort of measured approach, however, is wearing thin for an increasing number of parents who fear that their children's safety may be jeopardized by the lax attitudes of others. Among these new hard-liners, the notion of teaching "responsible drinking" is rejected outright. Few such parents believe they can ban booze from their childrens' lives single-handed. They are working through PTAs, churches and community groups to form a united front, lay down common rules and strictly enforce them. The most popular tactic in some communities is "safe homes," designated homes where parents pledge there will be no unsupervised parties and no alcohol served to minors. Directories of families that have signed up are circulated so parents can be sure of which parties will be chaperoned.

By laying down the law, the hard-liners say, parents will give their sons and daughters the ammunition they need to fight peer pressure on their own. "Kids need help in saying no," says Lee Dogoloff of the Maryland-based American Council for Drug Education. "The single most helpful thing that parents can do is give their kids an excuse to say, 'I can't take a drink because there will be hell to pay.' " Even some adolescents agree that their parents would be wise to be less accommodating. Says a high school junior in Charlevoix, Mich.: "Tell us that drinking is bad, that it's wrong. Then if we do drink at parties we will be careful, we'll be moderate."

Even so, experts and educators who are anything but complacent about teen drinking fear that an assertion of naked parental authority invites outright rebellion. "I don't want to see a parent condoning drinking," says Principal Hagan. "But I would rather see enough communication between parent and child so that a kid can call up and say, 'Hey, I'm drunk. Come and get me, Dad.' There's a heck of a lot of peer pressure out there for kids to drink, and to get that kid to call home is one of the things we work on."

Both sides agree that the job of protecting teenagers would be far easier if no-booze attitudes were established early on, and if they were bolstered in the schools. But the primary responsibility will always lie with parents, and theirs will always be the greatest dilemma. All too often, it takes a tragedy to shatter complacency.