What Changes During Adolescence?

Find a therapist to support kids and teens

Sexual assault is never a victim's fault, regardless of the circumstances.

Teens need to understand that alcohol consumption dramatically increases the risk of sexual assault.

Kids deserve reassurance that parents will always love and support them, even when they make mistakes.

Talking to kids about sexual assault prevention can be intimidating, but it’s important. April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and parents can use that as a conversation starter for initiating important discussions with their teenagers. While parents frequently may counsel adolescent and young adult children in standard safety strategies, discussing the relationship between sexual assault and substance use is also important.

As a pediatric emergency medicine physician, I see intoxicated college students in the pediatric emergency department regularly. Our first priority is to assess them for injuries, and then we monitor them until the alcohol wears off. But once they are sober and conversant, we also provide guidance around safe alcohol consumption and the risks associated with consumption beyond those levels.

Legally, teenagers and young adults shouldn’t be drinking alcohol before they are 21, and as a pediatrician, I advise restraint with alcohol consumption well into one’s 20s and beyond. Brain development continues long past childhood, into a person's mid to late 20s. The frontal cortex, which, among other things, plays an important role in higher-level thinking, doesn't complete development until around age 25. This is significant because alcohol exposure during adolescence can have a lasting impact on brain function and development and increase the risk of problematic alcohol use later in life.

That said, many college cultures and even some high school cultures center around alcohol consumption.........

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