Raising Kids in the Know!: What you can do
Parents and others play a strong role in
helping young people deal
with pressures to use alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. In
fact, not
wanting to harm the relationship between themselves and their
parents is the most common reason that young people give for
not
using alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
Following are actions that families and caregivers
can take to engage children and direct them
toward a substance-free lifestyle. Many may seem
like common sense and many can be just plain fun.
Try them all; try a few and experience the joy of
being a part of your child's success.
Action
1
Know! how to set a positive example and get involved
in their lives
Sometimes it's frustrating how few
chances there are to
have conversations about drugs with our children. In
our busy culture, with families juggling the multiple
demands of work, school, after-school activities, and
religious and social commitments, it can be a challenge
for parents and children to be in the same place at the
same time.
To ensure that you have
regular get-togethers with
your children, try to schedule:
- Family meetings. Held once a week
at a mutually agreed upon time,
family meetings provide a forum for
discussing triumphs, grievances,
projects, questions about discipline,
and any topic of concern to a family
member. Ground rules help.
Everyone gets a chance to talk; one
person talks at a time without
interruption; everyone listens, and
only positive, constructive feedback is
allowed. To get resistant children to
join in, combine the get-together
with incentives such as post-meeting
pizza or assign them important roles
such as recording secretary or rule
enforcer.
- Regular parent-child rituals. These
eliminate the need for constant
planning and rearranging. Perhaps
you can take the long way home
from school once a week and get ice
cream or make a weekly visit to the
library together. Even a few minutes
of conversation while you're cleaning
up after dinner or right before
bedtime can help the family catch
up and establish the open
communication that is essential to
raising drug-free children.
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