I have formed a good friendship with my children's former babysitter, E, who is in her junior year of college. This girl is the complete package: smart, gorgeous and sweet to the core. (Yes, you can hate her a bit – she is that amazing.) Soon after we first met I found out she was raised solely by her father (her mother passed away when she was 7 years old and her brother was 5). I marvel at how good of a job her dad has done raising both of them. They are studious, kind-hearted and driven. E is studying abroad in Italy and hopes to earn her Ph.D. after she graduates from college. Her brother headed to his first year of college last month.
“How did you guys turn out so well?” I asked her just before she left for Europe. “Tell me the secret. I need to know because I would be thrilled if my girls turned out like you.”
She laughed and said, “My dad was a total pain,” she said. She was joking, but only slightly. (She and her father are very close.)
“What do you mean?” I asked. Her dad is also one of the nicest men I know.
“He was always in our business,” she said. He constantly wanted to know who she was with and where she was, she said.
Even E’s brother made good choices. When he noticed some friends from school getting into trouble he backed away from them and started hanging out with a different crowd. (One of the boys in the former group of friends eventually died from a drug overdose.)
I think about E a lot because losing a mother at such a young age must have been incredibly difficult. My girls are exactly the age she and her brother were when they lost her. Yet she and her brother excelled and became great young adults. How is it they didn’t end up like the boy who died?
I asked a therapist friend who works with families whose kids are addicted to drugs. “How can parents make sure their kids never do drugs in the first place?” I asked her. (I think an easier question would have been how to drop five dress sizes in one day because everything I read and hear on the subject is varied.)
“The first piece of advice I'd say to parents is to hide [all their] prescriptions,” she said. “Even if they are sure their kids aren't using. Kids [today] are snorting Vicodin, Adderall, whatever they can get their hands on.”
Some kids will also try much more scary drugs, she said, such as blood thinners, cholesterol medicine and cold medicines (which, when taken in large doses gives an effect similar to LSD), just to get high. Those medicines cause heart attacks, strokes, depression, psychosis and suicidal thoughts if taken inappropriately.
“What should parents do if the kids have already tried drugs?” I asked her.
Parents should keep an eye on their kids, she advised. If their grades are dropping, or they are getting into trouble with teachers or the law, parents need to immediately step in and figure out what’s going on.
“Parents can buy urine tests on the Web now, and can know for sure [if the child is using drugs]. Teenagers, by definition, are in flux. They are hormonal, moody and rebellious,” she said. When they reach this age they often want to push the boundaries as far as they can. “Parents cannot let this happen,” she strongly advises. “Parents must always be in control.”
She suggests giving consequences in a way that won’t make the child more rebellious, such as making a child do extra chores to pay for his or her cell phone rather than taking the cell phone away (“Teenagers hate to be without their cell phones,” she said.).
“Make them realize that there are consequences, and be vigilant about it,” she said.
My friend recommended a book by Gregory Bodenhamer called Back In Control. The following is an excerpt about the book. He says exactly what I try and say on this blog about parenting and raising kids. Namely, consistency is key and rules must be enforced. Read on:
Bodenhamer makes it clear that whenever adults do not, or will not, consistently set and enforce rules, children will see the rules as optional and progressively take control. Many of these kids eventually wind up in residential treatment centers or wilderness programs. Unfortunately, most of them return to the same conditions that created their problems in the first place. Parents and other adults in these situations desperately need a supplemental source of power and control for their children. This book sets out the means and methods to do that.
The Village Counseling Center Web site has an interesting article on this subject (click here to read it). It mentions Bodemhamer as well as one of my favorite parenting books, “How To Talk So Your Kids Will Listen, And Listen So Your Kids Will Talk,” by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.
Another Web site that parents might also find useful is TalkingWithKids.org, which allows parents to download free pamphlets on everything from talking about sex to discussing drugs with kids.
Thankfully there are also resources on this subject, such as the book, Getting Your Kids To Say No In The 90s When You Said Yes In The 60s. There are also Web sites devoted to this topic, such as theantidrug.com. I also found this article useful, as well as this one, this one and this one. If you're a grandparent trying to help keep your grandkids away from drugs, this article is just for you.
As always, ideas and comments are welcome.
Photo by Richard Dunstan, courtesy of stock.xchng
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