Reply to S/o How can you minimize the chance your kid will get into drugs in high school?

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Reply to "S/o How can you minimize the chance your kid will get into drugs in high school?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
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There's nothing "inevitable" about a high school student experimenting with alcohol or drugs.  Will they have the opportunity?  Almost certainly.  Will they choose to try it?  That part is far from inevitable, and [b]it is largely influenced by the messages they've received at home from their parents over time. [/b]

Those messages don't necessarily have to involve intense or heavy conversations.  At least in our house they weren't.  It was just a clear expectation among many others.  We were expected to work hard at school, do our best, stay busy with sports and other activities, be good to each other, and make good choices, including steering clear of illegal things like drugs and alcohol.

Specifically, I definitely took in the message that drugs were illegal, unpredictable and could possibly mess with my brain.  Even if my friends were fine, that was no guarantee I would be.  That message made complete sense to me.  Drugs (including pot) were not a risk I was interested in taking, either in high school or later on.

As for drinking, I somehow grew up seeing that as something I would not do in high school.  Again, not a heavy message in our house.  Just a clear mindset I picked up that drinking was something I might try when I went to college, not before.  It wasn't a big deal.  I saw plenty of peers drinking in high school -- I went to the same parties, but I just chose not to "party" that way.  Not a big deal.  [/quote]

This is where I think everyone is wrong.  The vast majority of parents will convey the message that drugs and alcohol are wrong.  And yet most kids do experiment with alcohol and/or drugs.  Its important to distinguish between the kids who experiment and the kids who go on to have addiction issues.  Most kids who experiment do not become addicts.  If you took a poll of posters on this thread, most of us tried drinking and getting high as teens, most of us didn't become addicts.  I certainly grew up with the message from my parents that it was wrong.  Who didn't?

There's a lot of wishful thinking here about how if you are only a fabulous parent your child will never experiment.  This is just ridiculous.  Sure, not all teens dabble -- my DH never did.  But the statistics are there, most kids at least try drinking.

There are two problems with this idea that if you just tell them no, they won't.  (1) you end up blaming the parents of the kids who do experiment.  There's lots of that in this thread -- look at those kids, they must have negligent parents.  remember that when its your own kids.  (2) you shut down conversation, which is the greatest form of protection there is.

Sure I told DD that it was wrong and why.  She got that message.  But I also talked to her about safety.  And as a result she's come to me to talk about certain situations and I feel very confident that she has learned how to be responsible and has not gone beyond sticking her toes in the water.[/quote]

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