Teen entitlement a problem, whodda thunkit?

Teen nation has parents on the edge
- C.W. Nevius
Saturday, February 18, 2006

Carole Dean got a shock when she drove up to her house in upscale
Moraga on New Year's Eve. She estimates there were about 120 teenagers
swarming the place, "drinking, making out and smoking pot.''

"I had to push them to get in the house,'' she says. "I thought I was
going to have a nervous breakdown. I yelled at them to 'Get out,' and
they just disappeared, ran away or drove off.''

They left her to walk through her home in amazement. Someone had
punched holes in the wall. Two doors were destroyed. The back deck was
torn up. The floor was littered with bottles, some she couldn't help
but notice from the expensive Opus One winery in Napa Valley, where a
bottle can set you back more than $100.

When she found her son Ben, he was so shell-shocked he didn't even make
excuses. He'd lied to her, he admitted, when he said he was going
somewhere else for a New Year's party.

"I was organizing a small party for my friends,'' he said. "Then it got
big, and I got scared.''

It was not unlike the huge party that drew more than 100 teenagers to a
house in the Berkeley hills on Feb. 10, where one boy was stabbed to
death and three others injured.

Of course, the out-of-control party has been a staple of high school
lore since the days of Ozzie and Harriet. But that's not the story
here. Dean, her friends and other parents feel something more
important, something more pervasive, is happening.

This isn't about crazy parties.

It is about the culture of teen entitlement often found among, but not
limited to, children from well-to-do families. Dean calls it a
"dictatorship,'' and she's not talking about the parents in charge.
Like many mothers, she says she's been told when she tries to check up
on her kids that she's lost, out of touch, a loser.

The truth is, she is. From text messaging to instant messaging to
password-protected Web sites like www.myspace.com, there is an entire
teen nation out there that has posted notice: No adults allowed.

And parents are worried.

"Parents are deer in the headlights. They don't have a clue,'' says
Melinda Reilly, a friend of Dean's and parent of a teenage daughter.
"I'm 52, and I have been trying to think, was there anything my parents
provided to me that they were so completely clueless about?''

The parties, which grow from 20 to 50 to 150 in an hour, are
symptomatic. The tragic party in Berkeley is just an example of this
teen nation, the lightning speed of text messaging and the power of the
Internet.

"This isn't like when we were kids and driving around until we found
the party,'' says Douglas Bodin, CEO of Bodin Associates, an
educational consulting firm that works with at-risk kids all over the
country. "The cell phone chain is instantaneous. And these parties
getting out of control are epidemic.''

Well, says Orinda police Chief Larry Gregg, "epidemic'' may not be the
right word, although Dean and Reilly say officers told them it was
happening "almost every weekend.''

"This has been going on for a long time," Gregg said. "What I would say
is that parents don't have the control they used to. They are a little
hesitant to call Bill's parents to see if they are going to be there
during the party.''

Not to mention that your teenager would call you an incomprehensible
loser if you made that call.

"My daughter just makes me feel like I am a total nut,'' says Reilly,
who has started a blog, www.parentsheadsup.blogspot.com, to get parents
talking.

Parents may wonder what their kids are doing with all that technology
-- and might be shocked if they saw what their teen had posted on
myspace.com, where girls have been known to post racy photos of
themselves -- but they don't know how to check. So they don't bother.

"The parents all feel kind of alone and helpless,'' Bodin says. "And
maybe they are because they are not going to get this genie back in the
bottle.''

The real tip-off that this is a trend is that Bodin isn't just seeing
the signs of problems among disadvantaged kids from tough
neighborhoods. He gets lots of upscale kids, like the one who recently
told his parents he'd start going to school again if they'd get him a
BMW M3 -- which goes for about $50,000.

Even more stunning, they were thinking about it.

"We call it 'af-fluenza,' '' Bodin says. "The level of expectations
these kids have is off the chart.''

So, in a perfect world, this would be the moment when, with blinding
clarity, everyone wakes up. Dean says she is "100 percent sure'' that
her son's party could easily have ended as tragically as the one in El
Cerrito.

There has been some progress. El Cerrito High held a forum with parents
and students Thursday night to come up with suggestions for getting
parents up to speed and Miramonte High, spurred by an open e-mail Dean
wrote to the community, did likewise. Each came up with a plan of
action to follow when students host a party: call other parents, check
up on kids, watch the home liquor supply and monitor activities.

Some of the students were on board. And some figured their parents
would be clueless and would lose interest. They always do.

"Mom,'' Dean's son asked her when she broached the topic, "can't we
just drop it?''

The answer is simple.

No.

C.W. Nevius' column appears Tuesday and Saturday in the Bay Area
section.