Guidelines For Talking With Your Child About Drug Use

The following guidelines are from "Freedom from Chemical Dependency," a group in Boston, courtesy of SCC board member Dr. Bill Licamele. In reviewing these guidelines, keep in mind that "drug use" includes underage drinking. Drug use, particularly when it may involve a member of your family, is a very emotionally loaded issue. Thus, it is quite natural that many parents are at a loss as to how to begin to handle this problem within the family. These guidelines were prepared by counselors trained in working with young people to provide parents with some basic ideas for beginning to deal with this issue.          1. Become informed and make your position about drug use clear to your child – so that he knows where you stand on the issue – even if you have no indication that your child is involved with drugs. Whether or not he is using drugs, he needs to know his parents’ viewpoint on the issue.          2. With children third grade and under, you can talk about general attitudes. Help them understand their bodies and the sensitivity of their functions. Instruct them about usage of medications and even vitamins. Help them interpret advertising on TV. Many advertisements promote the use of various substances, and your child may be getting many messages and merely accepting them.          3. With children and youths over grade 3, you can rely on current events to springboard your discussions. Rarely a day passes without some drug- or alcohol-related incident reported in the newspaper or on TV. Rock stars get into trouble or die from overdoses, car accidents, and robberies, and many other specific cases can give you and your children the opportunity talk. Don’t attempt to sit down and have one "drug talk" with your child. Use the informal and ongoing opportunities provided to you.          4. As parents, try to reach an agreement with each other over handling the issue of drug use – so that there is consistency and mutual support in your communications with your child on this subject.          5. When you suspect drug use, avoid unproductive accusations - they often result only in denial on the child's part. Sit down with your child and discuss calmly any suspicions you have of his drug use. Talk with your child about personal concern for him as well as his wrongdoing in using drugs. Try to keep discussion on a calm, rational level, so that lines of communication remain open. Overly emotional, angry outbursts frequently serve only to cut off parent-child communication prematurely.          6. If you see evidence of drug use on your child’s part (i.e., physical or psychological symptoms or evidence of drug apparatus in his possession), make clear to him your position on his drug use and the consequences which you’re prepared to enact if he continues to use drugs. Make sure you are prepared to follow through with the consequences you set. Empty threats are meaningless to a child. Don’t begin by trying to change your child’s attitudes or belief about drugs – his point of view on this issue may well differ from yours. Your immediate goal is for him to change his behavior – i.e., to stop using drugs.          7. Try to maintain good communications with your child’s teachers. Let them know you are very interested in your child’s progress in school and would be very appreciative of feedback from them regarding your child’s academic or social behavior. Make your child aware of this so that he realizes that there exists a "parent-teacher coalition" and that his behavior and performance in school will most likely be communicated to his parents.          8. Avoid "labeling" the child or name-calling. Remember you are not dealing with your child’s character, but with his behavior (i.e., drug use). Suspicions of drug use by your child are frightening and can arouse a variety of fearful and angry emotions in parents. The goal is to remain calm and avoid saying anything which tends to further alienate you from your child.          9. The goal of communications with your child is to help him understand that although you may strongly dislike and disapprove of his behavior (i.e., drug use), you still love him and for this reason will enforce consequences you have set for drug use on his part.         10. Make it your business to get to know your child’s friends, who their parents are, and where and with whom your child is socializing, whether or not parties are chaperoned by adults, and so on. Don’t be afraid to communicate with parents of your child’s friends – introduce yourself to them in person or by telephone, if necessary. Parents have the best interests of their children in common and need to reach out and support each other in this endeavor. Make sure that your child is aware that you are establishing communication with parents of his friends. Being secretive only breeds mistrust.         11. Don’t be afraid to seek professional help with this problem. Counselors trained in working with children and adolescents can help by reopening communication between parent and child, providing a neutral ground for both parents and child to express feelings and serving to "de-fuse" the climate of tension within families which sometimes develops over issues such as drug use.  Alcohol Use (%)  Eighth Grade  Tenth Grade  Twelfth Grade  Lifetime Use    -- Any Use    -- Been Drunk  51.7 25.1  71.4 49.3  80.3 62.3  Annual Use    -- Any Use    -- Been Drunk  43.1 18.5  65.3 41.6  73.2 51.8  30-Day Use    -- Any Use    -- Been Drunk  22.4 8.3  41.0 23.5  50.0 32.3  5+ Drinks in a row in last 2 wks  14.1  26.2  30.0 Source: Center for Science in the Public Interest (reporting on 2000 Monitoring the Future Study which found that alcohol continues to be the most widely abused drug among adolescents). Visit www.cspinet.org or  www.monitoringthefuture.org.