According to reports, Jenna and Barbara Bush, the 19-year-old twin daughters of President Bush, were caught trying to order drinks at a Mexican restaurant in Austin. It is the second time in less than a month that University of Texas freshman Jenna has been caught drinking underage. She pleaded no contest to a charge of being a minor in possession of alcohol after getting ticketed by police at a popular Austin nightclub. A judge ordered her to pay $51.25 in court fees and serve eight hours of community service, plus six hours of alcohol awareness training.

This is the first bust for Barbara, a Yale University student.

Police say the manager of Chuy's restaurant called 911 on Tuesday evening after minors -- allegedly the Bush daughters -- tried to order drinks. No charges have yet been filed, pending an investigation.

So, is this a big deal? In this country, drinking is illegal for anyone younger than 21, but the reality among American college students is usually very different. Drinking happens -- and no one expects the restaurant to call 911.

In Jenna's case, it doesn't seem to matter if college-age drinking might be considered normal or if our nation's drinking laws seem a tad unrealistic. Her brushes with alcohol only further her reputation -- in the press, at least -- as a "bad girl." And her father's admitted problems with alcohol have fueled speculation that Jenna might have inherited alcoholism. (This despite the fact that the president has never gone so far as to say he was an alcoholic.) And there is talk, as there often is in these cases, that Jenna's reckless behavior reflects a lack of good parental guidance, and that she might be acting out.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to comment to the press on the incident. "If it involves the daughters in their private lives, it is a family matter," he said.

Adolescent psychiatrist Lynn Ponton agrees. Ponton is the author of "The Sex Lives of Teenagers: Revealing the Secret World of Adolescent Boys and Girls" and "The Romance of Risk: Why Teenagers Do the Things They Do." As a practicing therapist at the University of California in San Francisco -- and the mother of two teenagers herself -- Ponton is familiar with all kinds of risky behavior among teens.

Ponton laughed when she heard that the Austin restaurant manager had called 911. Minor offenses like underage drinking are best viewed as risk-taking, says Ponton, a process that adolescents need to go through in order to grow into adults. Whether the risk-taking is ultimately healthy or harmful for a child depends in large part on the guidance teenagers get from the adults in their lives.

Ponton spoke from her office in San Francisco about teen drinking, fake I.D.s and the role of parents in the risk-taking behavior of their children.

Would you say that Jenna Bush is taking some risks by drinking?

It's normal for kids to experiment with alcohol in our culture. Many cultures, European cultures, actually begin with exposure to alcohol in the home and then gradually introduce children and teenagers to it until they gain some familiarity with it. Our culture has a very limited expression of it and we're even trying to postpone the drinking age later, 21 in all our states currently.

But now we get to risky behavior. Jenna Bush has already had an arrest related to alcohol. This is a pattern of risk-taking behavior, and even though it's typical -- and it is typical of adolescents -- again, it makes us think about the importance of parental risk-taking patterns. We know for a fact that her father had a long history of alcohol use and abuse. And this is an opportunity for the parents to talk honestly with their children about risk-taking and really provide guidance and increase communication.

This is an opportunity for the Bushes to have this type of conversation. And I wonder what type of communication is actually taking place.

President Bush has never come out and said that he was an alcoholic. He said that drinking started to compete with his affections. Would there be any value in him, either publicly or privately, addressing that question again?

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