What Is Some Advice Or Ideas To Keep Teens From Experimenting With Drugs, Tobacco Or Alcohol?
What Is Some Advice Or Ideas To Keep Teens From Experimenting With Drugs, Tobacco Or Alcohol?
The reality is that most teens will experiment. The more important issue is how parents educate and respond to their teens. An absolute rule that states no drugs no alcohol can lead to parents not knowing what their teens are doing. Talk about values, talk about safety and talk about how you will be there for them even in them most difficult circumstances.
Parenting teens at risk of substance abuse and how to talk to teenage children about drugs and alcohol. Substance abuse and binge drinking is a serious issue amongst some groups of teens. read more
having 5 children one turning 13 next week I've been proactive in this. I think that is the key. Be in their business find out what is going in their life what their doing who their hanging out and who their friends are. Set limits with them for example making them be in by 10pm and I don't care if their 16 or 17 years old if they are living under your roof you are responbile for them. Also getting them involved in a social group or church group at a very young age with other children that dont do these kinds of things. More important be an example if you dont want your child doing something then you dont do it. You have to be a parent not a friend.
I have a 13-year-old son that I have an open communicative relationship with. We have been able to talk about everything and he hasn't lied to me in six year. I know what all his friend do or don't do and who is trying what and who is havving sex. Its a great burden actually but I digress. Okay, when he moved back in with me this summer I asked casual questions about some of the things he did and who his friends were etc. My son is a skater when he lived in California that is primarily all he did so you know his friends were other skaters, and we know a high number of skaters are potheads. I found out from him all his friends were potheads. I simply asked have you ever smoked it. He looked at me and said What do y you think I am? Stupid? I told him the truth about me. I did drugs. I told him why I did them, my experience with them, and why they are bad and I had to stop doing them. Kids I have found, since I have this great skill of relating well to teenagers...is honesty. If they are talking to you about things like thi sin their life shouldn't we be honest with them in return? The other hubber is right, if they are going to experiement you aren't going to be able to stop them. My father recently asked if I had the sex talk with my son and I said yup. He said what did you say and I sort of summed it up and he looked at me and went on a small tirade of how to tell him that he can't do it until he is married. I looked at me dad and said I have and I will again i you think that it will be affective but you and I both know that within two years odds are he will be having sex. I told my dad I already bought some condoms and stored them in my small safe so that way when he is sexually active he can come get them from me. Reality is today that they will do it if they want to do it and nothing we say is going to change it. We can give them every reason not to and they will probably still do it. The best thing I have found that I have actually had kids stop and not do something that they might have is that through time we have had enough open communication and I have been honest about what I did in the past and my reasoning and my consequences etc. They went off that nothing I sat and told them strictly why not to do it. Definately tell them the facts, leave room for questions, cover all your bases, use statistical references, then you tell them why on your end you don't think its a good idea from your expeirences.
It is important to begin well before a child is in their teens to address this issue. Explain candidly and in terms children will grasp at as early an age as you can about abusing drugs. Point out the positive effects of drugs that are given by a doctor and then address the negatives. Give them as much information as they can grasp at the time.
Try to speak loudly by your actions. If you abuse these substances chances are your children will. Thank God my daughter did not know that I was abusing prescription drugs. She never abused drugs of any kind and never smoked. She had some relatives that came close to death from abuse and that was a powerful lesson for her. .She also was friends with kids who did not use drugs, thank you again, God, for that.
Ideas: know what your children are doing, who they are with, and where they are at all times. Watch for tell tale signs of drug abuse including lack of interest in an old favorite hobby or pastime, weight loss in some cases (depending on the drug), smell of alcohol and tobacco, as well as a host of others.
Advice: Don't like to call it advice...suggestions....be open and ready to hear whatever your teen wants to hear and begin this well before they are teens. they need to know that no matter what you will be the wind beneath their wings to catch them if they are about to fall. That does not mean you should not be firm and have a no drugs policy. It only means that you will be prepared to listen nonjudmentally to whatever they need to share with you.
Kids are street smart today, much more so than even the kids of the early nineties. The world is at their fingertips so they know whatever you may tell them. they also can locate the things you won't tell them like the rush from a drug that they will read about on line.
The way you can counter that influence is to know what is going in on their lives, provide your support, your wisdom, and assurance that you will be there for them. If your child should stumble and abuse some drug, deal with it swiftly but try not to lose your mind. If you do you may cut off communication.
This is a very simplistic answer for a very complex issue but i hope I have helped some.
Get a meth dvd or find short documentrys on meth. They have scare tactics in these dvds but its factual. You may want to view it first. Its what professionals use in counseling for addictions. Its very informational for teens!
Unconditional love and communication are the key. So by the time children are at the age where they might want to try those things, parents have to make sure they have an unrestricted communication with their child, a loving, trust-based relationship with the child. The child needs to know, at any time, that no matter what they did--or didn't do--they can always trust you to be there for them.
I don't mean that the parents will always bail the child out all turn the blind eye to their mistakes but that parents will never forsake them, will always listen to their concerns, show genuine interest in the life of a child and will do their best to help the child through anything difficult of embarrassing, be it the child's first scraped knee, first fight with their friend, puppy love, prom night jitters or anything in between.
They need to understand that you always mean best for them, that when you tell them not to do something--or to do something--it's for a good reason and because you love them and want best for them. When they understand this, you can give your case for why drugs, alcohol or smokes are bad for them.
Help them to think about what it might be like to need to stop using them and find it very hard to do so. Somehow when we are young we think we are invincible and can't imagine that we would not be able to control or choose what we want. We mostly feel engaged in a battle of getting other people to allow us to do things amd can't imagine battling with ourselves down the line!
I don't have children yet, but when I was a teenager, my mother was very open, communicative and non judgmental with me. I was also pretty honest with her. She would ask me if I had done such and such, and I would tell her the truth. She may not have always LIKED the truth, but she got it from me. She was also always there for me when I needed her (to talk to her about stuff) which actually made our relationship so much better. We were just very honest with one another.
I have two little sisters (one is 12 and the other 11,) and they tend to talk to me more about this stuff than they do with my mom. I do the exact same thing with them that my mom did with me. There is no way to keep them from experimenting; I know they probably will at some point. The only thing I can do as their sister is to be there for them when they need me. I can also listen to them and answer their questions as honestly and informatively as possible.
P.S. The more you tell kids and teenagers that something is "bad" (whether is be sex, drugs, booze, tobacco, etc,) the more they may become interested in it. People are sometimes attracted to the forbidden. Therefore when I talk to my sisters about these things, I don't make them seem "bad," but more as something that some people may choose to do.
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