Yesterday’s blog post discussed how teens and young people can struggle with alcohol abuse and drug addiction. It also included some resources for people in that age group and their parents.
One of the sites is for the U.S. Substance Use Disorder and Mental Health Services Administration. If you ever want to know more about alcohol or drugs, I urge you to visit that site. I always use that site to find reliable information, and it includes accessible information about many substance use disorder- and mental health-related matters in a number of languages.
One interesting article on the site says that parents shouldn’t have one “big talk” about alcohol, but several small conversations. This approach makes a lot of sense. This tactic helps ensure that the conversations are appropriate for the children’s ages. It also doesn’t overwhelm the children with too much information at once, which could make it hard for them to remember or process all that they’ve heard and discussed.
These small conversations could be useful for another reason. These conversations can be timely and relate to what’s going on in their lives. Let’s face it, most people, even kids, have seen the consequences of people drinking too much. It could be a tipsy relative at a family party or wedding, a crashed car that’s the result of a drunk driving accident, or a television program where someone appears to be drunk. Parents could use these instances to answer their children’s questions and point out that drinking irresponsibly can have negative consequences.
Using such examples as they pop up might serve as better, more memorable examples than examples a parent uses with a prepared lecture. Children might see such examples as “real life” and not textbook examples they’ve heard in a school-like lesson, textbook examples that they have trouble relating to their own lies.
Even if kids respond to such conversations with eye rolling and an exasperated “I know!,” frequent mentions about the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse could help reinforce these discussions and maybe help them sink in a little more. Some conversations just bear repeating.
