Lenient parents seen as part of the problem

The Santa Rosa parents provided a table and counter covered in booze and then left about 50 teens to have at it, including then 13-year-old Zachary Parenti of Sebastopol.

“Everyone was really drunk. Hundreds of dollars of property was destroyed. I drank an entire bottle of Tequila,” said Parenti, now 14, an Analy High School freshman and member of 1-4-1, a teen club at the west Sonoma County high school.

For many teenagers, drinking alcohol is a rite of passage, with partying teens filling Facebook pages with pictures of beer bashes, images reminiscent of dozens of popular movies that have championed a basic theme for decades: “Dude, where's the party?”

But with recent health studies showing the harmful effects of alcohol on the teen brain and the ever-present risk of drinking-related tragedies on the road, parents are trying to figure out what to do about the age-old problem of teen drinking.

And some parents say many parents are part of the problem.

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by: Randi Rossmann