Krisanna Jeffery
Mood Altering Drugs and Role Modeling A Parent’s Toughest Performance
If you are a responsible parent of a teen today, chances are you are already quite
concerned about preventing their involvement in drug use! Yet all to often, we as parents,
prepare our children poorly to make healthy decisions around drug use, leaving them
instead, to be influenced by our cultural norms. (And we
know how unhealthy they are!)
With the average age for first use in
B.C. being 11 years for tobacco and 12 years for alcohol, we need to be starting our
prevention early. In a 1994 survey, children this age rated alcohol and drug use as their
second health priority. Most parents ask,
“So, what can we do?” Here are a few ideas…
Talk About Drugs: Remember, when
your child was young and you were training them about the dangers of talking to or going
with strangers. You would go over and over this idea from many different angles until you
were sure your child had got the message. Well, the same is needed for teaching them about
the dangers of alcohol and drugs. But because drug use is so widespread in our culture,
this does not happen and our children often succumb to the beliefs of the larger culture.
Some of these beliefs are, “Everyone uses alcohol and/or drugs”, “It’s
necessary to use alcohol and/or drugs in order to have a good time”, “Alcohol is
not as bad as drugs”, etc. etc.
It’s necessary to give your children loud, clear, and consistent messages
about your real feelings about drug use. It will need to be addressed over and over to
counter balance other untrue messages they are receiving. Media situations, like the Ross
Rebagliati debate, are great opportunities to start up discussions with your teens. After
educating yourself, encourage lively debate with them. This at least gives you a chance to
find out and clear up any distorted messages they have already received. (There will be
lots!)
Delay First Use: Research shows that the
earlier a child uses, the more likely it is that they will develop a substance abuse
problem. The other factor to consider is that drugs and alcohol will have a more severe
affect on the developing body compared to a mature one. Addictions will develop much more
quickly. So the longer any use of mood altering drugs can be put off the better!
Be a Positive Role Model :
Don’t be a hypocrite ! Kids are extremely sensitive to that. If you tell them that we
don’t have to have mood altering drugs to have fun, then model just that. As a role
model, you need to be honest about your own drug use. We can’t ask our children to do
as we say and not as we do. Try modelling for them saying “No”. They need all
the help they can get building those assertive skills.
And last but not least, if you know or suspect your child is using mood altering
drugs , act on it. It is important that you don’t ignore it. The earlier you
intervene the better. If you’d like more
information on prevention strategies, Health For more information, please contact Krisanna Jeffery Copyright © 2003 Krisanna Jeffery www.Krisanna.com |