A DEARTH OF DISCIPLINE

Laurie Wheeler of LaGrange Park would not dream of allowing her 17-year-old
son to drink alcohol at home. The problem is, the mother of one of her
son's friends not only permits drinking, she also adds girls to the
equation in the form of coed sleepovers.

That might sound a little more like a Las Vegas vacation than a parental
philosophy, and Wheeler would say that it is neither a good gamble nor good
parenting.

"She decided to be their friend," Wheeler said of the mother. "She feels
that the kids drink anyway, so she lets them drink at home. She used to be
zero-tolerance, like I am. I told her I'm not comfortable with my kid
staying there anymore."

School counselors say they are seeing more and more of this kind of
parenting or, as they call it, enabling. That is, parents enable their
children to behave poorly by removing the consequences of children's
actions. A standard parental reaction to underage drinking would be to
ground a child, but if that consequence is removed, a teen is likely to
find the next level of consequences outside a parent's control: arrest, a
wrecked car or worse.

Student assistance coordinator Linda Dunne of Lyons Township High School in
LaGrange-Western Springs is familiar with the problem.

"I work with a lot of parents whose kids are in trouble," she said. "What
we're talking about is this idea that we don't hold our kids to the natural
consequences, and I think it has something to do with the fear that our
kids won't love us."

The sin of enabling need not involve such weighty behaviors as alcohol or
sex. Mary Dailey, student assistance coordinator at New Trier High School
in Winnetka, pointed out that a more common example is a parent writing a
note for a child who fails to finish a school project, saying the child was
sick when in fact the student simply didn't get to it in time. The message
to the child is, "I'll save you no matter what."

Dailey has seen this parenting approach taken to the extreme. "I just had
an interview with a boy who is 14 and who smokes weed at home because his
parents think it's safer," she said. "That way his parents know he's not
out drinking."

"But I think kids want to know that we set limits," Dailey added. "Kids
oftentimes enjoy being able to say, `I can't do it because my mom won't let
me.' One of the saddest things I see is a kid who comes in and says, `I use
drugs with my parents.' If you let them drink, they're going to smoke dope,
and if you let them smoke dope, they are going to try something harder.
They want a way to push out from you."

The psychology of it all is not lost on teens. A group of seniors was
questioned on the subject at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview.
Though fighting like trial attorneys to stake out their rights as 17- and
18-year-olds, they conceded that they would have to question the love of a
parent who dropped all barriers on behavior.

Addressing the issue of alcohol in the home, Erin Chikaraishi, 18, said:
"It's never been an issue in my household, but by having the parents do it
with you, it's encouraging it. It's making it seem like it's OK. When kids
drink with their parents at a young age, later on, when they are 16 or 17
and they are with their friends, they say, `It's OK, because I drank with
my parents.' "

Though school and law enforcement officials hold parents accountable for
going soft, they do understand. U.S. Census figures indicate that only 1 in
4 of the nation's children live in two-parent families with only one parent
in the workforce. That means most children are in homes where either both
parents work or where there is only one parent, and that parent most likely
is working. The bottom line: There are a lot of overworked, stressed
parents out there.

When adults get home from work, they typically are tired and not ready or
inclined to play the disciplinarian to their children, according to Gary
Fields, superintendent of Zion-Benton Township High School District 126 in
Zion. Also, parents feel guilty about separation from their children, so
when bad things happen, they try to rescue kids from consequences, he
explained.

A manifestation of that has become a universal complaint among school
officials: Too often when parents are called in over a discipline problem,
they jump to a child's defense.

"If I did something wrong in school, there was not a moment's doubt that I
would be in trouble with my parents," said Diane Busch of Northbrook, who
teaches parenting programs through schools. "Nobody even thought about
blaming the school. All the adults were kind of on the same side. The
limits were very clear."

But like Fields, Busch understands why parents take that tack; parents can
get hooked on helping.

"If a lot of your good feelings about being a parent come from helping,"
she said, "you're in danger of becoming an enabler. But we don't enable
because we are bad people; it's because we are caring people. It's very
often that love that wants us to protect our children from any kind of pain
or conflict."

Even so, many parents are willing to stand their ground. But with parenting
styles differing as widely as fashions in a thrift store, the battle can be
difficult. If a child sees other parents allowing certain freedoms, even to
the point of the ridiculous, the restrictive parent will have a tougher job
of making a point.

"There is not that common understanding or expectation among parents
anymore," said Angie Dahl of Winnetka, who has two children at New Trier
and one in college. "It's very hard to be a parent and say, `This is what
we are as parents, this is what we believe.' "

That old neighborhood feel for parenting, where adults not only kept a
close watch on their own children but also on everybody else's, seems rarer
today than 20 to 30 years ago. But there is a move among school officials
to try to get it back.

Teens have had the upper hand, Fields asserted, because they are in peer
groups that communicate, and they use those groups against isolated
parents. For example, word of a party travels with computerlike precision
among teen ranks, but unless parents talk to each other, they may never
know that there is a party or whether adults are supervising it--or even
whether those adults are handing out drinks.

"We want to re-establish the neighborhood concept in a community that
really doesn't have a neighborhood," said Fields, who also is a nationally
known speaker on creating parent networks through schools.

When Fields took over as superintendent at the 2,100-student school
district five years ago, there were problems ranging from gang fights to
substance abuse.

"Five years ago, we had fights all the time," he said. "If you get in a
fight in this high school now, you will be arrested."

Substance abuse is dealt with quickly and forcefully. If there is suspicion
of drug use, a student is asked to take a drug test at the nearby Midwest
Regional Medical Center. If the child refuses or if a test turns out
positive, the student is sent before the school board for an expulsion
hearing. Expulsion is for one year unless the child promises to avoid drugs
and a parent is willing to pay for twice-monthly drug tests.

The idea was to re-establish a system with immediate consequences for poor
behavior. The second part was to get parents believing in the same thing.
So paired with the tough stance was the building of a parent network.

At the heart of the organization is a phone book listing 1,100 households
with parents who have signed a pledge to stay within certain parameters of
parenting, such as not allowing the use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco by
teens socializing in their homes and also not permitting sexual activity.

The network goes far beyond an occasional cup of coffee together, Fields
said. Aside from the 30 to 70 parent representatives who show up for
monthly meetings, the organization promotes frequent social events for
parents and teens, such as football tailgate parties and dances, "where we
show our kids we can have fun without alcohol," Fields said.

"As we have gotten parents talking to each other, we have found that they
really do have common beliefs for their children," Fields said. He also has
statistics that indicate the approach is working. Since the program began
five years ago, suspensions are down 50 percent, fights are down 40
percent, alcohol and drug violations are down 36 percent.

Pat Henderson, a school guidance director in San Antonio, Texas, who heads
a parent advocacy committee for the American School Counselor Association,
based in Alexandria, Va., applauded the idea of a socially active parent
network for the whole school.

"That's a pretty enlightened practice," she said. "A lot of what is
happening is a step behind that, working with parents in their natural
groups, such as parents of kids in the swim club or the honor society. But
there is an increased emphasis on how to get parents involved in schools
and talking to each other."

But Fields said many other schools are beginning to follow the same
philosophy of parent involvement. Lyons Township High School's Dunne, for
example, began a similar system there.

"Judging from what I hear from parents, this is exactly what they want: a
support system," said Anne Meyer of Deerfield, an education consultant and
former president of the National Family Partnership. She makes about 75
presentations a year across the country for schools or other groups wanting
to establish parent networks.

"Schools and families have to work together," she said. "A lot of parents
want schools to do the parenting, but the children are in school only a
short time. If only the school is doing it, it's clapping with one hand. If
only the parents are doing it, it's the same. We need those hands
together."