NOTHING WRONG WITH TELLING KIDS WE DON'T TRUST THEM

"It's not that we don't trust our kids."

I'm hearing that even more than usual amid the ongoing, high-profile
conferences, seminars and speeches around the region devoted to the
epidemic abuse of prescription drugs and their illegal partner, heroin -
an epidemic that killed more people statewide in 2002 than traffic
accidents. The whole concept of trust is loaded, of course.

When it comes from the kids themselves, in the form of, "Don't you trust
us?" it is loaded with unspoken accusations: You don't want us to grow up.
You don't want us to have any fun, to be able to develop our own
independence, to make our own decisions.

In short, you don't really love us.

But in spite of all that baggage, or perhaps because of it, I still think
the best answer is the one I used during my own 25-year kid-raising career:
No, I don't trust you. Not because I don't love you, but because I know
you and I do love you.

That's the only place I part company with Salem Schools Superintendent Herb
Levine on the fight against drug abuse.

I'm overwhelmed with admiration and appreciation for the courage Levine and
his son Joel displayed last week, when they put Joel's struggle with
addiction to OxyContin out in front of an auditorium full of people, in the
hope of diverting others from the same path. I'm behind Levine's proposal
to impose random drug testing in the local schools, although I think it
should apply to all students, not just athletes or those involved in other
extracurricular activities.

It's just that he undermines a worthy goal when he says he doesn't want
drug testing to send a message that he doesn't trust students. First, the
kids will see through that in less time than it takes them to send an
instant message.

Why would he be looking to test them if he trusts them? But more
importantly, no school leader should be apologetic about not trusting the
adolescents in his or her care. It's long past time to discard the view
that a lack of trust in kids is a bad thing.

It's a good thing.

In most other areas, we view it as a sign of love and care.

We don't trust kids to drive a car until they are 16 or 17, and even then
there are restrictions on those licenses for the first six months or so. We
do that to protect them and others.

Anybody who lets their 15-year-old drive is considered irresponsible, not
loving or trusting.

We don't trust kids to drink alcohol until they're not kids anymore, and
even then the insurance industry makes it clear that they are not really
trustworthy: Young adults between 21 and 25 ought to be the best drivers
of any age group, since their vision and reflexes are the best they will
ever be. Instead, they are the worst, largely because of their
irresponsible use of alcohol. We don't trust kids to learn all their course
work in school without checking up on them. That's why we test them. Nobody
considers that an invasion of privacy. We don't trust them to make a living
on their own, to manage a house or pay bills when they are still teens.

If some parents did, the state Department of Social Services could haul
them into court on neglect or abuse charges. We have child labor laws, in
large measure because we don't expect kids to handle complex machinery, or
to remain alert and focused for eight hours a day. That's just another way
of saying we don't trust them. And we shouldn't. So where do we get the
idea that we should trust adolescents to resist the siren call of peer
pressure, the exhilaration of taking a dare and the promise that every
troubling or depressing thought, every awkward feeling, will disappear by
snorting some white powder up their noses? If there were ever an area that
we should not trust them, this is it. Not because they are malicious and
evil, but because they haven't grown up yet. This is not a call to keep
kids in a protective bubble until they are 21 and then cast them into the
world.

Of course there must be a progression of independence. But, as in other
areas of life, that independence must be earned. When they practice driving
and pass a test, they get a license.

When they study for four years and pass dozens of tests, they get a ticket
to college and beyond. But if we trust them to spend hours hanging out or
partying on their own before they are ready or deserve it, it is tragically
clear that we are putting their future, perhaps even their lives, at risk.
During the turbulent teen years, a lack of trust is neither an insult nor a
penalty.

It is a gift of love.