A new resource to help parents and children deal with teenage drinking is doing the rounds.

Smashed: alcohol education to empower a generation is a free resource for schools, created by Collingwood Learning in the UK and delivered by Gibber Educational in Australia.

Click here to download the Smashed Alcohol Education Parent’s Resource Pack.

The information is presented clearly, and facts are presented as far more important than feelings when it comes to consuming alcohol.

ALCOHOL & THE TEENAGE BRAIN

Your teen’s brain will continue developing until their early 20s. Critical areas that help them with learning, planning, emotional stability and memory are all still growing and forming. This means your teen is particularly vulnerable to long-term damage caused by underage drinking and the safest option for them is to abstain from drinking alcohol until they’re at least 18

Under tips for talking to teens about underage drinking it says:

Talk to your teenager about how they can manage peer pressure, especially when it comes to alcohol, and help them have the confidence to say no 

Talk to your teenager about the reasons why you want them to abstain from underage drinking and some of the potential consequences including:

- long-term damage to their still-developing brain
- the risk that in today’s always connected world, they may be more vulnerable to negative social media images or videos shared without their consent and that they have no control over

The risks of alcohol consumption before adulthood are also clearly spelled out and include:

Cause damage to their liver, heart, stomach and brain if they regularly drink alcohol

Be a victim of a crime, including sexual and physical assault

Consider self-harm

Be involved in risky and anti-social behaviour

Make poor decisions

It is a clear and simple guide, rooted in facts and scientific evidence.

Why isn‘t the same effort and care being put into resources for children who are experimenting with their personality and identity?

The science is clear, our brains do not reach maturity until we reach our early to mid twenties. That is why children cannot drink alcohol, drive vehicles, get married or make permanent changes to their bodies like tattoos.

And yet, health care practitioners, politicians and some parents are willing to disregard the science to place children on experimental medications and pathways that can cause irreversible damage to their still developing brains and bodies.

Puberty blockers can cause incredible damage to brain development, bone density, fertility and sexual function.

Cross sex hormones are even worse.

And surgery is mutilating perfectly healthy body parts that can never function as intended ever again.

No child can consent to these consequences as they have no way of understanding the impact that harm will have on them as adults.

A Royal Commission is urgently needed to save the lives and well-being of a generation of youth undergoing the normal confusion and frustrations of puberty.

There is a better way to care for these young people that reduces the risk and is more in line with the scientific evidence.

Until the clinics are investigated, until the transitions are stopped, until the research is considered and alternatives to “affirmation-only” pathways are offered, a generation of children will continue to suffer at the hands of woke activists who care little for their well-being.