Charles gets sympathy all round

All teenagers think everyone is looking at them and talking about them. How unfair is it to be the one teenager in the country (since it's not Euan Blair's turn) of whom this is actually true?

All teenagers have a go at getting drunk as soon as they can get away with it. More and more teenagers, brought up in a drug culture and knowing that the law and its practice are not the same thing where drugs are concerned, tackle their first puff along with their first swig.

Very few teenagers indeed get to suffer tabloid headlines along with the hangover and, worse than headlines, people like me putting in their two pennyworth when they've already had a visit to the rehab to get a guided tour of the slippery path to perdition.

Very few parents of teenage children are going to feel anything other than sympathy with the plight of Prince Harry and his more-in-sorrow-thaninanger Dad. If you think you can bring up children nowadays without having to ponder and grapple with the whole question of drugs - I was going to say that you must be living on the Outer Hebrides, but I know that the more remote the place, the more likely it is that drugs are used to relieve the tedium. And those early teenage years are the worst for having a go at absolutely anything.

So what is a parent to do? None of us actually wants our children to take drugs or, if we are totally honest, to get drunk. What we would love is for them to be honest, sober, industrious, early-rising, self-cleaning and motivating, kind to relatives, animals and especially us. But heavy parenting is out of style so more and more of us settle for telling them merely to be sensible. Sensible and sixteen-yearolds, unfortunately, don't always go together.

The episode, says the Palace, is over. But what little we know about Prince Harry says he isn't docile or risk-averse. However embarrassed Prince Harry may feel, however much he swears he won't touch a drop or the dope again, in the long term this is unlikely, given the temptations which surround him and given what seems to be a reckless, sporting character.

Will it really have worked to have sent him to a drug rehab centre to meet crack and heroin addicts? Only time will tell. Feisty teenagers know that whatever the bad thing is, it won't happen to them. They are immortal, invulnerable and will never get caught. Still, if I were Prince Charles and I was going down the path of shock, I would have sent him to an AA meeting as well while I was at it. Reading the accounts of his drinking alarmed me much more than the smoking. Drunken kids are a danger to themselves and others. They get into fights, cause accidents, quarrel with each other, break things, throw up and are a general pain. Smokers are simply boring and giggle a lot.

But even cannabis is dangerous to some people, and other drugs, as Harry must have been told time and again, can seriously disrupt your life. I don't know anybody who doesn't have at least one teenager in their acquaintance whose school and college life wasn't derailed by drugs, sometimes leading to serious mental illness. Parents are right to be alarmed.

There are some things you can do to reduce the risk. One is, I wouldn't go away and leave them alone in the holidays. Forget the rubbish about quality time. The most essential part of parenting is simply being to hand. Allowing your teenagers to have their friends around when you're not there is only asking for trouble, no matter how many detectives you employ - and their role sounds pretty uncomfortable, forced to observe but not allowed to intervene. Encouraging their friends to come round when you are there has the bonus of you knowing who they are.

Prevention starts very early. Don't let your kids isolate themselves. Don't let them have tellies in their bedrooms when they're little or nightclubs in the basement when they're big.

Communication between parents and children doesn't happen in formal one to one conversations. It happens in snatches over the homework or the washing up.

If you are not happy about their friends or suspect they are getting into dangerous habits, sacrifice your pride. Become a tribal parent. Get in touch with their friends' parents, introduce yourself and find out what they know. Take collective action and agree collective rules.

I wouldn't know some of these guidelines if I hadn't learned them the hard way. Prince Charles is no different, learning on the job, madly bolting stable doors like the rest of us. It just seems that the good Prince William was too gentle a training for bringing up his wilder younger brother.