Why kids and booze don’t make good mixers
BY DONNA VICKROY dvickroy@southtownstar.com January 13, 2012 8:20PM
Afoul of the law
The Tinley Park couple arrested Dec. 31 are not the first parents to be held accountable for underage drinking in their home.
In October, an Elmwood Park, N.J., couple were arrested after police found 59 teenagers drinking alcohol in and around their home. Police took the teens, ages 14 to 17, into custody and arrested Diana Lozano and Humberto Costanzo-Gil. Thirty-eight of the teens later were charged with underage drinking.
Bill Burnett, a Stanford University professor, was arrested Nov. 25 over a basement party thrown by his 17-year-old son. Burnett, who said he and his wife had forbidden alcohol at the party and were upstairs when police arrived, spent a night in jail and was booked on 44 counts of suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
In November 2010, Shlomo and Jeannie Rasabi were arrested for hosting a party at their $7.5 million Florida estate for 600 high school kids.
Tiffany Clark, a mother from Beverly, Mass., was arrested in 2010 and charged with supplying alcohol to minors after police learned she served gelatin shots laced with vodka at her daughter’s Halloween party. The Department of Social Services took Clark’s two children into custody.
In 2007, Jeffrey and Sara Hutsell were found guilty of allowing underage drinking in the basement of their Deerfield home after a high school football homecoming game. Two teenage guests were killed in a car crash shortly after leaving the party.
Updated: February 16, 2012 8:10AM
What were they thinking?
That seems to be the prevailing question since the New Year’s Eve arrests of William and Kimberly Opferman on charges they unlawfully allowed minors to drink alcohol in their Tinley Park home.
When police arrived, they found 25 to 30 kids between the ages of 14 and 17, lots of beer cans and bottles of vodka, police said. They also found one child vomiting and another passed out behind the house.
“You really have to question their judgment,” said Tom Delegatto, a Frankfort father of three and certified alcohol and drug counselor.
Wherever you fall on the parenting continuum, from authoritarian to ultra-permissive, experts say there’s little argument to support adults either giving booze to other people’s children or looking the other way when they sneak it into their home.
“You just have no idea how those kids will react,” Delegatto said. “Will they get sick, get violent, pass out, maybe get in a car and drive?”
What’s legal?
Illinois is one of 31 states that allows parents to give their underage children alcohol — if they are drinking for a religious or cultural reason or if parents are with them in the privacy of their home.
Many parents believe they can teach their children how to handle alcohol long before they turn 21. But Delegatto, business development director at Chicago Lakeshore Hospital, said, “I don’t think you need to serve it to them in order to teach them.”
He said if kids see their parents enjoying social drinking, without passing out, without getting drunk, without getting arrested, they will understand that is how liquor should be enjoyed.
He also said there is a reason there’s a law against serving minors.
Effect on teens
Alcohol not only affects teens’ developing livers and kidneys, it profoundly affects their brains, Delegatto said.
“Teens are impulsive; alcohol clouds their judgment. When you mix the two, it’s a recipe for disaster,” he said.
By the time they reach 21, 86 percent of American youths have tried liquor and 50 percent are binge drinkers, states the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Research released last week revealed more than 38 million adults binge on alcohol at least four times a month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Of American teens ages 12 to 14 who admit drinking alcohol, almost 30 percent say they were given the booze by their parents or other adult relatives, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Just saying ‘no’
When police knocked at the Opfermans’ door, they heard someone shout that the kids should get in the basement.
As police talked with William Opferman, 41, two parents arrived to pick up their kids. Those adults told officers their children had contacted them because people were drinking.
It shows the gamut of parenting approaches, Delegatto said. You have parents who basically tell their kids it’s OK to break the law as long as you don’t get caught, and you have parents who obviously told their kids if they found themselves in an uncomfortable or potentially dangerous situation to call home, he said.
The kids who bailed on the party should be commended for doing the right thing, said Homer Township Fire Protection District Chief Mike Schofield, who also is a battalion chief with the Orland Fire Protection District.
Schofield runs “Blink of an Eye,” which puts on presentations in area schools about the perils of drugs and alcohol.
“We teach kids that when something is wrong, they need to take responsibility for notifying somebody right then and there,” he said. “It takes a lot to stand up to peer pressure.”
Carrie Jarosik, a social worker at Sandburg High School in Orland Park, said kids taking a stand against such behavior, even when it is sanctioned by adults, is becoming more common.
“I hear about it more and more. I’m not sure if it is attributed to more education on the subject, parental involvement or the stricter consequences (i.e. sports contracts with schools),” said Jarosik, faculty sponsor for Operation Snowball. “I’m proud that these kids exist. I feel if someone sees just one person say ‘no,’ it helps them to feel confident to walk away as well.”
Meanwhile, the Opfermans face a Jan. 26 court date. But their trial in social circles wages on.
“These parents made a bad decision, and once you make a bad decision, you can’t take it back,” Schofield said.
If kids sneak booze
The incident has prompted questions about what exactly parents can and should be held accountable for. What if parents are unaware that kids are boozing it up in the basement? What if parents are out or away for the weekend when the behavior occurs?
“Ignorance is no defense,” Tinley Park police Cmdr. Steve Vaccaro said. He added, though, that if the adults truly are not aware, then the kids will be held responsible.
“But once a parent gets knowledge of a situation, they are expected to take immediate action,” he said.
The kids in this case were not charged because police had their hands full just tending to the medical issues and gathering names so parents could be notified, Vaccaro said.
“There were a lot of kids at this party,” he said. “There should have been better supervision.”
Vaccaro said if you’re hosting, keep constant tabs on the partiers by checking on the food situation or finding reasons to stay in the mix.
Keep tabs on kids
Vaccaro recommends parents not only know their kids’ friends but those friends’ parents.
Delegatto agrees. Ask questions, he said. When does the party start, when does it end, will there be alcohol?
Even if your kids are of legal age and alcohol is being served at your house, you could be held responsible if one of those imbibers gets in a wreck on the way home, Vaccaro said.
“I certainly wouldn’t want that on my head,” he said. “I’d have everyone put their car keys in a bowl and accept that they’re spending the night.”
It all comes down to being responsible. If you know someone is underage, you have a responsibility to not let them drink. If you know someone of legal age is drunk, you have a responsibility to not let them hurt themselves or someone else.
Delegatto put it this way: “A parent’s job is to be a parent, like it or not. It’s your job to teach your kids how to make good decisions and to accept the consequences of those decisions.”
Schofield added, if parents set the wrong tone by making bad decisions, they lay the groundwork for their kids to do the same.
“Is that what you want your kids to learn from you?” he said.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment