How can you best raise your kids to avoid drug & alcohol abuse? (BF, parents)

[Cheektowaga_Chester]

We as parents are all worried about this. We can only do so much as like what was written above. We've all read (probably know) about parents who did everything right and ended up with a totally drugged up kid and vice versa.

There are other things too, like your kid getting in a bad car crash, your kid failing at his/her marriage, your kid getting some horrible disease, your kid failing at his/her career.

[Billy_J]

With myself, learning the DAMAGE drugs can do to your body - seeing rotted teeth and the skin between the mouth / nose rotted away from snorting drugs. Memory problems and impotence caused by pot. Heart valve damage caused by contaminated drugs which are injected, etc... THAT is a good enough reason in itself to not use drugs...

...but also keep in mind WHO is manufacturing these illegal drugs. They are drug addict criminals who could care less about YOUR health. They will put things like formaldehyde into the pot they sell. Or use ANY chemicals they happen to find to make their drugs. The dealers will "cut" the drugs with any power which is the same color - they don't care if it is poison or loaded with bacteria and will cause your death! They just want their money.

Anyway there is no "FDA" watching to be sure illegal drugs are safely manufactured or that you are getting a specific "dosage". No telling what you might get.

So just learn about and teach your kids about the above. Maybe you can find videos of a legal drug manufacturing facility and show the kids how sanitary and safe the drug manufacturing process is - consistent. Then find another video or pictures of an illegal drug manufacturing location. Quite a contrast!

[Billy_J]

So far as alcohol goes, being mentally healthy and understanding a bit of psychology is a big help. Learning that it is better in the long run to resolve problems on your own (without needing to use alcohol as a crutch).

And learning that the later teen years / early 20's are especially filled with emotional problems (growing up), and that is a time to be vigilant to NOT use alcohol to resolve problems, rather to ONLY use it for fun / happy times. Because if you start using alcohol to deal with your problems at those ages, you will continue to do so for the rest of your life. Those people never "get it" that their problems are still there the next morning and nothing has been resolved...

[Cheektowaga_Chester]

Have them watch "Scared Straight".

[no kudzu]

Originally Posted by Billy_J

So far as alcohol goes, being mentally healthy and understanding a bit of psychology is a big help. Learning that it is better in the long run to resolve problems on your own (without needing to use alcohol as a crutch).

And learning that the later teen years / early 20's are especially filled with emotional problems (growing up), and that is a time to be vigilant to NOT use alcohol to resolve problems, rather to ONLY use it for fun / happy times. Because if you start using alcohol to deal with your problems at those ages, you will continue to do so for the rest of your life. Those people never "get it" that their problems are still there the next morning and nothing has been resolved...

I have a problem with that statement. Too many times we hear of "fun/happy" times turning into alcohol fueled disasters. We taught our kids that they can have fun happy times without alcohol at all. Our adult children drink socially I believe. But since our son now lives in Singapore I doubt he is doing much drinking at all. My 30 year old daughter enjoys a mixed drink when they go out to dinner but they don't keep booze in their apartment. A little wine for dinner guests.

DH and I just aren't drinkers. I'll sip a glass of wine while making supper if the recipe has wine in it. I'm not celebrating anything or trying to solve a problem or having fun. Alcoholism runs in my family so I am probably a bit more strict about drinking in our family.

[LPDAL]

I tried alcohol when I was a teen. I thought it didn't taste good and that it charred my throat, so I prefer soda.
Don't get your kids hooked on Adarall or Ritalin either. I nearly failed sophomore year trying to do schoolwork without taking adarall. Thankfully I broke the cycle and got into my first choice university.

[animalcrazy]

Let me take them to work and show them the face of what cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol does to the body. I took care of a 25 year old that suffered an arrest from a heroine overdose last night. The lights are on and nobody's home for the rest of his miserable short life. I could show this person to 100 kids and there will still be some bone heads that won't get it. Raising kids is a crap shoot and you can do everything right and still end up with a moron. I think the only thing you can do is supply a good foundation and hope for the best. I always tell the kids in my life about the horrors of substance abuse. Sometimes hearing it from an adult that isn't family broadens their horizons a little more. I like to give them graphic gory details about what I have to do to my patients. I'm hoping that image will stick in their heads into their adult years and maybe they'll think about what they're doing.

[Creature of the Wheel]

Originally Posted by twoincomes

But, what in your opinion do parents need to do to help their kids stay away from drug and alcohol abuse?

You can't do a damn thing other than educate them on where drug use and abuse leads to. It's always two things: dead or in prison. All you can do is hope your child or children do the right things in life. All it takes is one bad apple to possibly ruin your child/ren. That bad apple can be a relative, a friend, a significant other, curiosity, your own child/ren, etc.

[hml1976]

I think you talk about it a lot. I think you wait up for them and set reasonable limits. I think you try to keep them busy.

But even all that isn't going to stop everyone. I was a straight A student with good involved parents and nice friends, I still got drunk a lot as a teen and smoked a lot of pot. I was always looking for excitement.

But what I think kept it within controllable limits (meaning I didn't become an addict or ruin my life) is that my parents were good parents and were involved in my life. They didn't know what I was up to but I had to be sober enough to have a decent conversation when I got home from wherever and I knew that. By late high school I had matured enough and I was downright boring by college

[haggardhouseelf]

I think establishing an open, honest relationship with our kids is probably the most important thing a parent can do.

This is one of the best books a parent can read, ever:


And you do this by being open and honest yourself, and also listening to them. Really listening to them.

And when they talk to you, try your best not to react right away. If something they say concerns or worries you, try hard to sort of have a poker face when the kids tell you things, whatever they may be. On your own time, consider a logical appropriate response, and then go back to them in a gentle and respectful way when you are calm.

We are the parents, yes, but we do not have all the answers. It's better to be "all ears" than to try to have all the answers.

If our kids feel safe talking to us, we have a good shot at being the person they feel safe and comfortable with when they are faced with life challenges - like being offered pot on the school playground (this happened with our oldest son) or being hugged by a strange older girl at the park (also happened with older son).

If our kids don't feel safe talking with us about weird stuff that goes on in their everyday life, they will turn to their peers (who may or may not be a good influence) or they will hold it inside and it will fester, causing problems.

Also - something we do with our kids (they are both teenagers) - we have made sure over the years to let him know how to escape certain situations should they ever arise. For example, if our kids are at a friends house for a sleepover or hanging out or whatever... and someone starts drinking or using drugs, our kids know they can text us our secret family code, discreetly (they can say they have to use the bathroom, then text us from the bathroom... this way no one overhears their voices talking to us)... then we will either come pick them up or we will call them and give them a legitimate excuse to have to leave suddenly.

If someone offers them "a hit" or whatever, we've talked to them about saying something like, "Oh, man, I am on prescription meds so I shouldn't right now..." We tell them it's OK to lie in certain situations - if it means protecting themselves or getting themselves out of a bad situation.

Things like this allow them to "save face" and gives them a way to remove themselves from a situation where they may otherwise have felt peer pressured into doing something they don't want to do.

(And luckily, so far, our kids don't seem to want to do drugs or alcohol.)

And also - keeping them busy. Volunteering, jobs, chores, sports, music, whatever they are into. What we've noticed is that the kids that have gotten into the crowd that binge drink and abuse drugs are either the football or basketball players, or the ones that aren't involved with anything at all. So we've steered our kids away from those groups - so far so good.

(I don't mean to say anything bad about basketball or football... it might just be where we live... but in our city, those kids love to "party" and they sort of have a bad reputation for drugs and alcohol.)