I know you aren't into scare tactics, OP, but honestly my kids knowing they'd have to deal with their father -- who would take everything away from them, both stuff, activities, any fun, and would fill their non-school time with a lot of labor, and for who knows how long -- probably is what kept the older one from touching anything all through high school, and will probably keep my 11th grader from it too.

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that some people think that 1+1= 2 when raising kids. You can do everything right and it can still go very wrong. My neighbors meet all of the PP’s criteria and have two out of three kids with pretty bad drug problems. The third is autistic and doesn’t have any substance abuse problems. He is also non-verbal. Meanwhile, I come from many generations of alcoholics and drug addicts on both sides of my family and never experimented with either. I was too busy raising my younger siblings because my mom was passed out after 3pm everyday. You just never know.

Just World Theory….it’s the Sam smug self satisfaction of parents who aren’t dealing with special needs or other challenges.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports, OP. Sports.

This is insane to me that people think this.

Folks, the high school sports crowd are the partiers. Wake up!

Yeah where is this coming from? Usually the sports kids are often also popular kids and it all goes together. Maybe some REALKY high level sports kids aren’t but that’s the minority not the norm. Doesn’t mean sports can’t be great for kids but to say the football and lacrosse kids for example aren’t basically hosting most of the parties is bizarre to me

Not all sports are equal on this. While I'm sure there are exceptions, it's not the cross country team/ tennis team/ swim team isn't throwing wild drunk parties. It's the "bro" sports of football/lacrosse.

You would be surprised at who the drunks and stoners are. They are on all those teams

So many answers here that every single kid in recovery will say they did. sports, financially secure families, resist peer pressure etc etc but none have said what the biggest cause of substance abuse is,

mental illness.

as a parent of a kid in recovery, you learn that substance abuse is a by product of mental illness and they use to numb the pain, to shutoff the noise, etc they get addicted and it goes from there. there are people who don't get addicted and have "normal teen behavior" but more and more are becoming addicted at unseen numbers.

none of these kids decided to be addicts, none of them are enjoying killing themselves slowly. the insurance companies are awful with treatment and our elected officials have their head in the sand until it happens to their kids.

do what it takes to make your kid happy and healthy, i can tell you my kids entire high level club/travel team played 90% of their games high as kites and most of the team plays in division one now and still gets high al the time.

the drugs they are using have a much higher potency than just a few years ago and are laced with highly addictive drugs mixed in. The dab, they snort, inject increase doses etc.

here's to many months sober for my kid and if your kid needs help, get them professional help

I do see the importance of a good home life, as so many of you have mentioned, but...

I came from a wonderful, warm and loving family. Parents were always around, they never drank excessively (only during celebrations, and I never saw them drunk), we were never home alone, always loved and cherished, plenty of resources, close with aunts/uncles and grandparents...but I experimented A LOT in high school and college. I enjoyed the party scene. I was a good student, I was active in several hobbies/sports, and I was generally a really good kid. But I also got a thrill out of weed and alcohol. Maybe it was my friend group? I don't know, but I do worry about my own kids who are about to hit their young teen years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports, OP. Sports.

This is insane to me that people think this.

Folks, the high school sports crowd are the partiers. Wake up!

Yeah where is this coming from? Usually the sports kids are often also popular kids and it all goes together. Maybe some REALKY high level sports kids aren’t but that’s the minority not the norm. Doesn’t mean sports can’t be great for kids but to say the football and lacrosse kids for example aren’t basically hosting most of the parties is bizarre to me

Not all sports are equal on this. While I'm sure there are exceptions, it's not the cross country team/ tennis team/ swim team isn't throwing wild drunk parties. It's the "bro" sports of football/lacrosse.

I don't think it had anything to do with kids being wild. But, parents think that sports, activities jobs ect means that their child will have zero interest or desire to experiment. I don't think that's true at all, in fact, overscheduling has its downsides.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports, OP. Sports.

This is insane to me that people think this.

Folks, the high school sports crowd are the partiers. Wake up!

Yeah where is this coming from? Usually the sports kids are often also popular kids and it all goes together. Maybe some REALKY high level sports kids aren’t but that’s the minority not the norm. Doesn’t mean sports can’t be great for kids but to say the football and lacrosse kids for example aren’t basically hosting most of the parties is bizarre to me

Not all sports are equal on this. While I'm sure there are exceptions, it's not the cross country team/ tennis team/ swim team isn't throwing wild drunk parties. It's the "bro" sports of football/lacrosse.

I generally agree, but the XC and track crowd at our school are hug pot smokers. Swimmers do throw parties, but their intense and early morning training schedule means they are few and far between. You can predict when they will be (i.e. after the last HS swim meet for each season).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports, OP. Sports.

This is insane to me that people think this.

Folks, the high school sports crowd are the partiers. Wake up!

Yeah where is this coming from? Usually the sports kids are often also popular kids and it all goes together. Maybe some REALKY high level sports kids aren’t but that’s the minority not the norm. Doesn’t mean sports can’t be great for kids but to say the football and lacrosse kids for example aren’t basically hosting most of the parties is bizarre to me

Not all sports are equal on this. While I'm sure there are exceptions, it's not the cross country team/ tennis team/ swim team isn't throwing wild drunk parties. It's the "bro" sports of football/lacrosse.

Particularly for the boys, the sports is a hardcore "bro" culture in high school. It's problematic on so many levels. I think we might also want to put on this list...Realistically keeping teens away from drugs, smoking, alcohol, and sexual promiscuity and treating the gender of their romantic interest like trash.

Parents like to think that if they just keep their kids busy thats its some sort of magic bullet. The smart, athletic busy kids with jobs and 6 hours if homework, tons of activities and jobs can't possibly experiment with drugs, alcohol etc. What they fail to realize is that if their kids wants to they'll find away. It's not "bored" kids, its usually kids with personal or homelike issues

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports, OP. Sports.

This is insane to me that people think this.

Folks, the high school sports crowd are the partiers. Wake up!

Yeah where is this coming from? Usually the sports kids are often also popular kids and it all goes together. Maybe some REALKY high level sports kids aren’t but that’s the minority not the norm. Doesn’t mean sports can’t be great for kids but to say the football and lacrosse kids for example aren’t basically hosting most of the parties is bizarre to me

Surprised no one has mentioned this...the sleepovers. That's where it all goes down in high school. They want to sleepover so they won't have to see you at the end of the evening and you won't notice if they're drunk or high.

Anonymous wrote:Sports, OP. Sports.

This is insane to me that people think this.

Folks, the high school sports crowd are the partiers. Wake up!

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that some people think that 1+1= 2 when raising kids. You can do everything right and it can still go very wrong. My neighbors meet all of the PP’s criteria and have two out of three kids with pretty bad drug problems. The third is autistic and doesn’t have any substance abuse problems. He is also non-verbal. Meanwhile, I come from many generations of alcoholics and drug addicts on both sides of my family and never experimented with either. I was too busy raising my younger siblings because my mom was passed out after 3pm everyday. You just never know.

Do you have children? Are you concerned about them using drugs or alcohol? Dh and I are both adult children of alcoholics who never drink or use drugs because of our childhood experiences. We've discussed alcoholism, etc in age appropriate ways from early ages. They are young teens now and we still talk, but who knows if it's good enough. We've tried to avoid dysfunction in our home and acknowledge and seek help when we don't know how to manage things. I can't help but fear that the fact dh and I were abused and neglected makes us dysfunctional even though we've done well for ourselves and our kids. Maybe it does skip a generation?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sports, OP. Sports.

High school athletes do stupid stuff all the time. They're not immune.

+1

I thought Sports would be the key too, unfortunately, not in high school. Lots of the athletes smoke weed. That's how my son started doing it. The ones who don't do it are heavy into drinking. Soccer/Football are his sports.

What I have learned is to keep communication open and honest with your teens.

I mean the Lax team at our HS is the source of the biggest parties, I can't believe we're an outlier on that front.