THE seven years immediately after a child reaches puberty mark a developmental crunch time, when the brain is both extremely susceptible to damage from drugs and alcohol and six times more likely than an adult's to develop an addiction.
Teenagers absorb drugs and alcohol into their bloodstream more quickly than adults and, afterwards, their metabolism isn't as efficient in breaking them down, warns Trevor Grice, a visiting New Zealand expert on teenage drinking. At the same time, these maturing bodies are only just developing "reward" chemicals such as endorphins, but still lack the emotional maturity to control them.
Mr Grice, the founding director of Life Education Trust NZ and co-author of The Great Brain Robbery, is urging parents to do all they can to delay their children's introduction to drinking until after the seven-year period elapses.
"Puberty brings with it a range of doubts," he told The Australian as he attended a weekend conference in Melbourne on the issue. "They want to be taller, have less acne, belong, be different. They worry about school, begin being interested in the opposite sex. They fear rejection, they negotiate family, there's bullying.
Mr Grice's warning came as police around the nation conducted a co-ordinated weekend blitz on alcohol-related crime, including drink-driving and violence.
More than 2000 people were arrested. NSW Deputy Commissioner Dave Owens said blitzes such as Operation Unite would never of themselves solve the issue of alcohol-related violence and dangerous behaviour.
"What it was about was starting a debate," he said.
Mr Grice said parents "have to help (their children) get their brain software right while they're on that ladder; otherwise as adults they'll be using dumb software".
But parents shouldn't be too hard on their children's inevitable mistakes, he said, having spoken to thousands of children over his 30-plus-year career in the field.
"They will act in obnoxious ways that offend their parents," he said. "But deep down they love them and would die for them. The teenager's brain's all accelerator and no brake; they are elbowing their way to adulthood and making mistakes."
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