Should alcohol and addiction education be mandatory for parents found guilty of serving their underage teens alcohol?

I would 100% agree that underage drinking is a very important issue. The key to treating any chronic disease is finding and identifying the disease and beginning treatment early, alcoholism/addiction is no different. Now I will not go so far as to say every incidence of underage drinking is a sign of alcoholism but I can say from experience that 99% of every story I have heard at every AA meeting I have been too begins like this, "So I started drinking around 12/13/14/15/16 years old and I started at home or a relatives/good friends home." 99% of stories is a generously low statistic.

I have been to 1000s of meetings. I would think addiction and alcoholism identification would be mandatory for every parent.At the very least I would think every parent would care enough about their children to seek out the best information available on the subject so to do their best in determining as early as possible the signs and signals of early onset addiction in their own children. I know every parent who discovers their child is an addict/alcoholic when the child is 25 would certainly in hindsight say they would have loved to have discovered the disease earlier.. possibly to have saved the life of that child in a literal or figurative sense.

Parents are too often enablers of the beginnings of addiction and allowing ones child to drink at home for the sake of safety is lazy parenting. Yes dealing with drugs and alcohol is hard, it is very very hard especially to a busy parent of a rebellious and/or "cool kid" teen but doing so is beginning the pattern of enabler feeds addict that will be the death of a boat load of alcoholics/addicts this day alone. This pattern has to stop before it starts and that begins with information so 100% if a parent has not already sought out enough information on addiction/alcoholism to see allowing underage drinking at their home is a terrible idea and they are caught and convicted of doing so then absolutely they should be required to go to addiction/alcoholism classes, attend Al-Anon meeting, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Narcotic Anonymous meetings etc etc until the get it and see the bigger .. no, the whole picture of what addiction and/or alcoholism will do to their children.

I have a personal stake in this being a hindsight 20/20 addict/alcoholic myself. I began drinking at home at the age of 11/12. I would have benefited from a parent that better understood the early warning signs of alcoholism and addiction.

Even from the most parentally selfish standpoint the parent should be seeking out all the information they can find about alcoholism/addiction because unlike when a child dies of cancer or leukemia or car accident or other more traditional diseases and fates a death by addiction not only takes out the addict but in supernova style takes out all of the people surrounding the addict, it is a long and drawn out death of financial, spiritual, physical, emotional ruin that severely effects all those involved.No parent has to be told by a court to get all the information on cancer when their child is diagnosed with the disease, they automatically do it as a good and concerned parent, no parent should have to be told to get the information on alcoholism/addiction when their child exhibits the early signs of this disease but if they have to be in order to change the way the world views addiction/alcoholism then court mandates are a great idea. The easier softer way? Get all the information you can.. even if it means being told by the court you have to.

My personal thoughts are if a Parent hosts a party or purchases alcohol for minors they should go to jail. People who do this will not learn from classes just as the alcoholic does not stop until they want to. If Parents are serving they obviously feel they are doing nothing wrong.To force them into class would most likely just make it a more secretive event.

I also feel kids who are going to be alcoholics will be even without the help of the social Parent. Alcoholism is a personality disorder and booze is used to fill some void in that persons life.So whether that Parent is there or not they will find their drug of choice elsewhere on their own. But they don't need the help.

I have heard of this happening often and I feel the parents should not only have to take some kind of parenting classes, but they should also either go to jail or get a big fat fine. This just opens the door for more students to want to hang out so to speak with the students that have parents that allow this. Iam not to sure if it will always lead to the students being addicted or end up alcoholics, but I do feel the parents should be punished in some way or another.

flickr.com/photos/timthered/2092987704.

Just lock the parents up, when the problem persists.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.