I think privately it's important, if your children know about your problems with risk-taking, that you tell them first that we all make mistakes so that they understand this. And you don't have to tell them the details, or they'll try to compete with your risk-taking. But it's important to emphasize that you made mistakes and what you've learned from them.

Many parents fail to talk about their own risk-taking; they actually hide it from their kids. And they lose this valuable opportunity and they see it repeat in the next generation. So I think Bush has an opportunity now.

I would actually prefer he do it privately. This is a private matter. It involves his two daughters. It involves an opportunity for him to have this type of discussion. And he's not alone; this is a problem that parents with teenagers are facing all over the country.

Is the public scrutiny of this behavior -- his and his daughters' -- unfair?

Having watched what happened with our last president's risk-taking, I don't think it's any different. We're a Puritan country still, and we cast a moral eye on our leaders, and we expect them still to be perfect. I think it would be better if we recognized that everybody does make mistakes. Bush's office could either say "no comment" because this is a family matter, and we would understand that, or he could say, "I am taking care of this in a private and family way and think it's very important."

But what I'd also like to see from Bush is that he take an active interest in adolescent risk-taking issues in our culture. Currently there is a report on adolescent risk-taking and sexuality that the surgeon general's office has not been allowed to release. The report was called "Call to Action" and Bush's administration has delayed its release.

From what we know, this report indicates that we need to continue to look particularly at sexual risk-taking -- and other kinds of adolescent risk-taking -- very seriously. I believe that one of the reasons this report has been delayed is because Bush emphasizes no conversation; and he emphasizes abstinence-only programs.

And this report advocates something different?

Absolutely, that's what we think. He's suppressing this report.

This brings up another incident that came up in the press -- that Bush had been convicted of DUI and had done community service, but that he had not discussed this with his daughters until it was uncovered by the press. He said he didn't want to talk about it with them because he didn't want them to make the same mistakes he did.

This is the issue, where a parent refuses to talk about any part of the risk-taking. I don't think he has to talk about the specifics -- he doesn't have to brag about how much alcohol he drank. See, it's the bragging that kids respond to and then imitate, when they think they're going to go one better than their parent.

But I think honestly informing them about what the behaviors were, about some of the feelings about them and, most important, about what you learned from them, is crucial. If you learned, for example, with respect to drinking, that it affected your work for five or six years, that you weren't as alert -- these things are important to disclose. Or if you have a family history of alcoholism -- that is another important detail to disclose. In my own family, there are some significant problems with alcohol. My two teenage children -- I also have an 18-year-old daughter -- are well informed about this problem.

There seem to be a couple of different issues in play with the Bush daughters. There's the drinking itself, and then there's the amount of scrutiny that they know they're under. Are they acting out?

I'm not so sure they're doing it because they're under pressure. My best guess is that this is a pattern that had begun a while ago. It's also age appropriate at 18 -- you're going to try to use the fake I.D.s at 17, 18, 19. Kids leaving for college take fake I.D.s with them now.

I think it's very hard to be the child of a famous person. That is a risk for both of these girls. That's why I said that this behavior we're seeing is really normal adolescent behavior. It really opens up a question much more about how the parents are going to respond to it.

Remember that these girls are going on dates. The Secret Service is there, [but] they're not calling [911]. On some level they're looking aside while these girls are doing this. So it is complicated and difficult to be the daughter of a president. But I think we can all respect their privacy.

I don't think it's any reason to condemn them or their behavior. I'd say, if anything, we can learn.

Recent Stories