Help Your Children To Deal With Drugs And Alcohol
Having to resist daily loads of peer pressure and influence by media can take an enormous amount of strength from your children, and when it comes to drugs and alcohol your children want to know the facts and knowledge, instead of scare tactics and threats from their parents.
Some children who have been surveyed said that their trust in parents as well as the credibility they felt for them went way up on the scale when they actually researched the topic of drugs with them. These successful parents figured out that the best way to help their kids from being drawn into taking drugs was to educate them, as well as learn together, instead of condemning the topic.
Taking the time to research together with your children encourages them to absorb what they are learning about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, instead of shrugging off "warnings" and "threats" from their parents. Kids tend to believe things that they figure out for themselves as opposed to hearing from their parents firsthand. It is only natural for teenagers to want to do the very thing that their parents say is "bad for them".
In fact, many children who are using drugs and alcohol say that they had very strict parents who would not even speak of such habits in the household. These are the children that seem to fall prey to the taboo effect. This means that the more that the parents say "don't do it" then the more the kids want to.
From personal experience, having raised three wonderful young adults, we did not practice condemning such subjects as drugs, alcohol, and smoking. Of course we did not condone it but on the other hand we always made sure that our children knew that they could talk to us about drugs at anytime.
We did not create that "taboo effect" in our household. In fact, and many parents may disagree, but we always said that if our kids are going to try alcohol then they might as well try it in the safety of our home. As a result, to our children's minds it did not seem like anything was "off limits" and they were not attracted to doing it just because they were not supposed to.
The psychology of taboo means that children often try something simply because they are not supposed to. Don't add the mystique of just saying "no". Research the effects of drugs, alcohol, and smoking with your son or daughter.
Talk with them about what you find. Do not make using drugs and alcohol outside of the home appealing by condemning the subject. You just may be surprised at how well adjusted your children will be when they have to face peer pressure from other people in the future.