Don Heinzman
ECM Staff WriterParents, your kids are making decisions on smoking cigarettes and marijuana and drinking alcohol in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. By ninth grade, the pattern is set and in 10th, 11th and 12th grades, itís all about prevention.
Your middle school students are forming their attitudes on drinking and smoking while hanging out with their friends from 4 to 6 p.m. school days and at parties on weekends.
The experts say you have the best chance of preventing your kids from smoking and drinking but you have to set the rules, enforce them and follow through with consequences.
Research says that kids who know their parents disapprove of their smoking and drinking are less likely to do so than those whose parents never mention their disapproval.
Many parents are too trusting and want to be friends instead of parents to their kids. They refuse to believe the signs that their kids are using and are playing into the hands of their adolescents, who can buy drugs in school and on the streets within minutes.
When they finally realize their kids are into drugs, they are afraid to get help, and donít know where to find it.
The result of this tug of war between parents and their kids over drug use is that in Minnesota two of three 12th graders, almost one in two ninth graders and one in seven sixth graders reported smoking cigarettes and pot and drinking alcohol in the most recent Minnesota survey taken in 2001.
Expert speaks
Carol Falkowski, director of research communication for the Hazelden Foundation, a nationally renowned drug treatment center in Center City, monitors use of drugs in the Twin Cities area. She says:
ïHalf of kids will try marijuana before they get out of high school.
ïEight out of 10 high school seniors have used alcohol.
ïSix out of 10 youths have used tobacco by their senior year in high school.
Falkowski has written an eye-opening book, ìDangerous Drugs.î In her introduction she says, ìMany of todayís parentsóbaby boomersócame of age in the 1960s, and they now have teenagers of their own. These parents in particular may not feel the need to ìkeep upî on drugs. They often presume to know all about drugs because, after all, they were the hippies and the ìlove childrenî who had experiences with drugs themselvesówho probably even inhaled their marijuana.
ìYet, when people pause for a moment to reflect on what they actually know about drugs in todayís world, many come up short.î
Falkowski and others are trying to sound the alarm about this state of drug abuse among high school students.
Eye-opening facts
To most parents the information is an eye-opener.
For example, they donít know that todayís kids are getting information, even buying drugs off the internet, nor do they realize that some kids are dipping a marijuana joint into formaldehyde.
They do not know that kids are taking off-the-counter and someoneís prescription drug pills. Since this is a pill-taking culture, most kids donít see the harm in taking them.
Parents are amazed to discover 85 percent of students say that drugs are easy to get.
They do not realize that smoking cigarettes leads to drinking alcohol which in turn leads them to marijuana and on the road to taking more dangerous drugs.
Sharon MacDonald, who runs a successful ìReduce the Useî program in the Minnetonka and Hopkins area, says todayís parents are overwhelmed. With all the bad television, programs, movies, advertising and magazine kids read and watch, some are just throwing up their hands and giving up.
Yet, parents must realize they are the best protection their kids have.
In a book ìKeeping Your Kids Drug Free,î published by the National Youth Anti Drug Media, the American Academy of Pediatrics says, ìKids who learn from their parents about the dangers of underage drinking, drugs and other harmful substances are less likely to use those substances. In other words, you have the power to keep the child you love safe, healthy and drug free.î
MacDonald has the data that shows that when parents explain early that they disapprove of their kids drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes and marijuana, their kids are less likely to do drugs.
ìWhen parents disapprove, kids do less,î said MacDonald.
Next Week: What parents must know about drugs.
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