I know my teen was in the emergency room because they drank themselves into a coma, but I want to talk to you about their acne. Their acne seems so bad. 

Really? Acne is your priority? There’re times when you either choose to ignore the significance of something or you don’t understand the significance of something.  The Mom above doesn’t understand the significance of a teen needing to be in the E.R. to manage intoxication. This degree of use can mean the teen didn’t feel the buzz and so over drank their limit of alcohol, or they ignored it thinking nothing would happen. Both reasons are likely since no teen thinks anything bad will happen unless they have an extra dose of anxiety. I expect this of teens, but when parents don’t give serious situations the weight an incident like this deserves it makes it so hard to convince teens later that their use is a problem. They think Hey, my parents know and they don’t say anything. I know they don’t like it, but they just say I shouldn’t do it. No one stops something that is bad for them especially when it is enjoyable without a reason to stop. The only thing that stops you from eating all the chocolate in the world is that you won’t be able to fit any clothes, walk out of your house or be medically healthy. Otherwise, bring on the cookie room!

When something happens to your teen, there’s a decision to make as to whether you should use the weight of the circumstance to your advantage.  Coming home drunk is one thing, but needing the assistance of a medical team warrants a bit more than being grounded. Remember, you’re trying to prevent future negative behavior and there aren’t many teens that show up in the E.R. and don’t continue to use.

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This may be your gut instinct, but try taking it one step further. Your teen is acting weird, is something wrong in their world? Figure out if something is wrong in their world before you jump to getting a drug test. More often than not that is when you’ll hit pay dirt. Why is this more important? The drugs if they are doing them are about coping. This is a way to escape the environment that makes them so unhappy. They hang out with friends and they smoke pot to have a good time and forget their woes, your glass of wine if you will. They are too immature to realize that the woes are there when the high wears off. Because we are all a product of our environment your teen will reflect that environment with their mood.

Now the question becomes, if the mood reflects the environment and I’m in their environment, how can I change what happens here to improve their outlook on their life? How do I help them not want to escape their life, but be present in their life? These are better questions that a drug test can’t help you answer. More than likely your teen will have tried to use their words. If they feel their woes have fallen upon deaf ears, they resolve to keep their difficulties to themselves. This sets up a feeling of isolation with their difficulties, which can spiral into hopelessness and depression.

Asking the right question and being able to hear the answer to that question allows you as the parent to support your teen in a way that makes drug use the poor choice even to your teen.

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Few teens realize you can become addicted to pot or marijuana. They consider it a practically legal drug like cigarettes and unlike marijuana cigarettes are extremely hard to quit and cause more preventable medical problems. So even when something is legal it doesn’t mean you should allow it to be done.  Teens who dabble in some drug use are curious, or risk takers or may want to escape from some difficult life challenges. The problem is when they come down from the high the problems are still there and they are no closer to solving them.

The ultimate point is that your teen follows your lead. When they respect your opinion and position in their lives they listen to you. If you’re not opposed to their participation in behaviors that affect their lives, your teen becomes equally nonchalant. Just like the binky, the candy and the keys to the car, no teen will willingly give up something that is fun or feels good. There is going to be some crying as you take it away. What is important is that you show your teen you care enough by enduring that crying so you can take it away.

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Thanksgiving break is coming up and you’ve decided to have the party at your house. If your teen is going to drink, you want them safe in your house. Good plan?

No. The plan sucks! Supporting your teen in underage drinking is not the way to ensure they are safe on what promises to be an evening with let’s say a lot of behavior you might question, or should question. Instead, you need to set the rules and be the parent.

Your teen likes to get away with stuff.  It teaches them about boundaries and the society’s limits, but they like it more when you hold them accountable and stop them in their tracks from making poor decisions. Imagine if something really bad was to happen. In addition to your own guilt, someone and this may include your teen will wonder “I‘m a teen, who was in charge of me? I’m not really old enough to make these decisions.”  When teens get in trouble that is when they realize they weren’t old enough to be responsible for that decision.  Before hand, it’s all bravado!  If they can’t say, “What are my parents going to think or do to me?” after having done something that wrong.  Something is wrong.

It’s never really okay to approve of illicit behavior in an attempt to make the bad behavior safer.  You simply need to teach that the behavior is not acceptable, know your teen might attempt the behavior anyway and hope they don’t make a decision where the consequence is worse than they thought. 

This is how teens learn adult behavior and begin making adult choices. Your job is to make this safer and not the illicit behavior.

Related posts:

1. Whose House?

In the United States, this privilege is bestowed on middle teens (ages 15-17 years). An age when teens think they are omnipotent. In others words, when teens think nothing bad will happen. They will not get hurt; get pregnant; get a sexually transmitted infection (STI), or die.  ”Nothings gonna happen Dad.  You’re so paranoid.” 

Because we know teens think this way, it has become very important to be clear and educate them on exactly what constitutes risky driving. ”No texting while driving” is an amendment added to the California “Hands Free Law” and is a serious issue being discussed around the world. “No texting while driving” is the message they want to convey to everyone, but especially young drivers, teens.  The recent movie by Will Smith, “7 Pounds” shows how a moment changed the lives of several people and the following PSA was done in Europe to stimulate conversation and prevent texting while driving. Please view this PSA with your teen and be aware the content is graphic.

Please include “no texting” to the list of “No’s” when driving.

The privilege of your teen driving, similar to being a physician, places the lives of others in your teen’s hands. The community trusts that when your teen is driving, they will do so safely. The difference between your teen and the physician however, is that unlike the physician, the relationship your teen has with others on the road is not as intimate.  Your teen is not thinking, “I could kill someone’s grandmother, brother or aunt.”  Your teen is unaware of the person who has placed their life in their hands and unfortunately, they only find out later when the killed loved one’s child, parent, wife or brother expresses their grief.

Everyone knows you shouldn’t drink or be under the influence of drugs or alcohol while driving and still some teens will say, “I drive better when I’m stoned.” Your teen driver should understand clearly the ”No texting” and other “No’s” while driving:

• No talking on your cell phone
• No changing clothes
• No changing the radio or adjusting the dashboard preferences
• No unruly passengers in the car
• No driving with poorly fitted shoes that remove too easily.
• No eating food
• No applying make up
• No unruly pets in the car
• No drinking
• No drug use
• No texting

Anything I forgot that once made you unable to pay attention while driving?

Related posts:

1. The Interesting Way Teens Think
2. 4 Tips on Compromise for Teens
3. Labor Day A Lesson For Teens

1. Grades

They are what every parent looks for, but they don’t always know how to interpret them. Since not every teen is destined to earn a high score, average scores can also be a sign your teen is doing well. However, a sudden change in grades or grades that seem to stay low with each grade level is concerning.  A lower grade can mean they have met their academic limit this is common in 2nd or 3rd year in high school. The work does get harder, but for teens in regular classes sudden low grades or a change in grades can mean:

• A learning disability that was not challenged before
• Attention deficit disorder (earlier signs may ave been missed or dismissed)
• Depression or even ongoing sadness called dysthymia
• Home conflict (divorce, family tragedy)
• Recent trauma (sexual, physical or verbal abuse)
• Substance and Alcohol use
• They are unsure about their future and confused about the role of school in that future

2. Illness

A sure way to avoid school is illness sometimes called somatization.  When an illness that seems very real is a mask for emotional problems.  If the doctor is not clever enough to ask how school and the rest of their life is going, this avoidance can be missed entirely.  Sometimes teens will tell a stranger things they won’t tell their parents. The reasons behind the illnesses are:

• Bullying
• Teasing
• Socializing difficulties (no friends)
• Unusual anatomy or delayed puberty (changing in the locker room when you have gynecomastia, breast development in boys or appear very young)

3.  Truancy or missing class

If you can’t get a legitimate excuse, skip.  There are other teens not doing well in class and these teens tend to socialize with each other outside of school.  This is a terrible cycle since teens that skip class are in danger of or have already failed out of school. It can be difficult to motivate someone so behind on class work. It may take a lot of convincing that these teens may not be the best influence to return to school especially since these are their friends, their support, and they understand what they are going through. 

4. Your teen tells you.

If you are in the fortunate position to have your teen tell you what their needs are, “I need an alternative type of schooling,” “I’m really not enjoying school” or “I’m more miserable than I think I should be at school.” Please listen to them. They are frequently correct.  The hard part about this is as a parent you have to let go of your fantasies of what you thought your teen would become AND you have to let go of how you think your teen can get there, to happiness.

School concerns are better dealt with early.  Once you get too far behind it may seem impossible, but even then, things are not what they seem.

Related posts:

1. Does Your Teen Hate School?
2. 5 Ways School is more than Grades
3. Have It Your Way At High School

Using substances is a coping skill and unless replacement skills are practiced, any stressful situation is going to find your teen thinking about using drugs or alcohol unless they have the tools to give it a second thought and refuse to use.  Things that have helped teens stay in the state of recovery are listed below.

Recovery

1. Friends.  An important part of maintaining sobriety is being friends who are NON users, people who do not use drugs.  The temptation is too great when teens in recovery associate with their old “using friends.”

2. Activity.  Keep busy with sports, exercise, volunteering or art for example. There should be some activity that calms while allowing them to experience joy that can distract them from the cravings of wanting to use drugs or alcohol.

3. Triggers. There are many things that could potentially trigger someone, a scene in a movie where someone is using drugs or is high, driving by an old haunt where they purchased drugs or got high, going to an ATM machine where they would get money to purchase drugs or listening to a certain type of music.  This includes the alcohol and drugs if any at home.  Although you may not have a problem with drugs or alcohol for the sake of your teen you must act as if you do and throw away old precriptions, alcohol and other potential drugs of abuse from the home.  Medications that must be taken should be locked away.  Because your teen may not know what their response would be, it is important to have a practiced plan like calling their sponsor when the trigger presents itself so they can cope with the stimulated craving.

4. Support. Meetings and the support they provide is essential to success. The saying goes, “thirty meetings in thirty days” illustrating the importance of immediate support required after any type of recovery program.  As important is the support for the family through individual therapy or al-anon or alateen type services.

5. Communicate. Teens in recovery should talk about their feelings instead of denying or numbing them with drugs.  This is done through meetings, individual therapy or their relationship with family and friends.

Prevention

1. Friends.  Know who your teen’s friends are.  The best way to do this is asking them about their friends and having those friends over to socialize at your house. If you have the opportunity to chauffer your teen with their friends, seize it!  This is a chance to listen and get a feel for what kind of people their friends are.  When they are no longer associating with a friend ask them about it.  “Why aren’t you hangin’ out with Jason anymore?  Did you two have a disagreement?”

2. Activity.  “Idle hands do the devil’s work.”  This is very important when it comes to teens. They can get very creative when left to sit idle. Use them to serve their community, participate in a sport, help tutor younger kids or get a job.  These are hidden opportunities for them to discover their own talents, find mentors and possibly a future passion. It is also a great opportunity to develop a skill and in doing so build self-confidence and self-esteem.

3. Support. Support comes in many forms for teens: parents, older siblings, relatives, teachers, bosses, etc. It truly takes the individual talents of the community to help look out for our teens.  Use them so that you enrich your teen’s learning process.

4. Communicate. It is so very important to keep the lines of communication open and to open these lines early.  What a gift to a teen to be able to come to you and tell you honestly what is bothering them without fear of judgment or criticism.  This is by far the best way to keep your teen safe.

Please notice how similar the list to maintain recovery and prevent drug or alcohol use is.  Whether you chose to practice these tips before any crisis or after, it is clear these skills are important to maintain a state of well-being for your teen.  Why not learn the tips to maintain recovery as tips to prevent drug or alcohol use and spare the emotional challenges of seeing your teen succumb to the power of addiction?

Related posts:

1. Do you think your teen is on Drugs? part 3: 6 Red Flags to look for
2. Do you Think your Teen is on Drugs? part 2
3. Do you think your teen is on Drugs? part 4: Resources

Treatment for drug and alcohol use involves, but is not limited to individual therapy (where the therapist meets with your teen alone), family therapy (the therapist meets with your teen with you and other involved family), and group therapy (where the therapist meets with your teen in a group of other teens with the same issue).  Group therapy can also be Narcotics Anonymous (NA) or Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).  Other places may include art therapy, relaxation therapy, physical therapy by way of exercise and the list goes on.

Rehabilitation can be done as an inpatient (in a rehabilitation facility) or outpatient setting (while the patient is still living at home). Therapists frequently start in an outpatient setting and this is important since your teen needs to learn how to function and cope  in that environment and not all insurance companies cover inpatient rehabilitation, which can be very expensive. 

Local Resources:

• Pediatrician or teen doctor.
• You can also call your insurance company. This will be different depending on the type of medical coverage in your area. More comprehensive healthcare may have this so well integrated into their standard of care that the referral is seamless.
• Local church or place of worship.

Online Resources:

• Alcohol Drug treatment is a great referral service for local help. An operator can answer questions and refer you to local rehabilitation centers.
• Google: There is no harm in doing a Google search for “Teen drug treatment in your city” 
• NIDA is a great resource for information, resources and other information. 
• Teendrugabuse.USAThey “educate people about why teens begin using, what they are using, and how those drugs are affecting teens physically, socially, and mentally.”
• Theantidrug.comThis is a website full of resources about teen drug use and stresses the fact that parents are really the antidrug message. They give you tools to help you perform that duty to the best of your ability.

Hotlines:

• 1.800.662.HELP.  This is the number for the US Department of Health and Drug Treatment Referral Service.  You can always Google search this same information for your local town.
• 1.866.SOBER12.  Another referral number where the person can direct you based on the information you provide. 

Books:

Books allow you to connect with others while learning from someone else’s story. Great examples of some well written stories are:

• Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff.
• Tweaked: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff
• Broken by William Cope Moyers
• The Lost Years: Surviving a Mother and Daughter’s Worst Nightmare by Kristina Wandzilak and Constance Curry

Resources can get you the information and help you need and connect you with others who share your experience.  You need a support system to endure this phenomenal challenge. 

Tomorrow the definition of recovery will be stressed and there will be helpful tips to begin the discussions and habits that help prevent drug use and abuse.

Related posts:

1. Do you think your teen is on Drugs? part 3: 6 Red Flags to look for
2. Do you Think your Teen is on Drugs? part 2
3. Do you think your teen is on Drugs? part 5: Tips for Recovery and Prevention

1. Grades. Grades are an important indication of a teen’s sense of well-being. If grades have changed dramatically, there is need for concern.  This does not mean that you think your teen should be getting As and they earn Cs and you want their grades to be higher.  This is a student who was getting As or even Cs and by the end of the semester or the following grading period the grades have dropped 1-2 letter grades.

2. Friends. A change in friends and interests is also cause for concern.  As in, “Why don’t you hang around Ceci anymore? I thought you two were great friends.” The original friends are not likely to support the drug use and/or your teen is more likely to feel ashamed of how the drugs make them treat their original friends so they do not hang out with the original friends anymore.

3. Appearance.  In terms of teens, a lot can be said about their appearance or the way they look because so much of their identity and expression is done through their clothes, hair, etc. However, when a teen goes from well kept to disheveled and not caring about their appearance at all, there is cause for concern.

4. Moody. Teens can be moody. Yes, this is normal, but mood swings are not normal. Wide variations in mood and at the slightest provocations are cause for alarm. When the drug is not in their system they will be less patient than when the drug is in their system.  This will cause extreme highs and lows in their mood that will make you feel like you are walking on eggshells around your teen. I know you may already feel this on some level, but this is outside the range of what is considered normal.

5. Privacy. This is another alert that is difficult to tease out from normal teen needs of privacy so please do not think that you shouldn’t give your teen privacy in order to prevent drug use.   This is not true and it will not prevent drug use.  This is more like:

• Extreme needs for privacy like outbursts that are unusual when you enter their space almost like they have been caught.
• No information about their coming and going or not having any schedule.
• Having conversations that are immediately stopped when you enter the room are cause for alarm.

6. Evidence of drugs. This may seem obvious, but many parent have mentioned, “Their teen was in a car with others who were using drugs and they just smell like it because they were in the car.”  It is important that you are cautious with the number of times you let this excuse explain something that is clearly odd. Your teen is more likely to use drugs if their friends do.  If you keep smelling drugs or you find drugs or items that look like they are used to do drugs you should pursue any suspicions that you have at that point.

Hopefully this list will help you make a decision about whether you need to ask for help.  If this list makes you want to talk to your teen about your concerns and you need help read part 1 of this series and if you get a positive answer back and want to know what kind of drugs use is considered abuse read part 2 of this series. 

Part 4 will cover resources because if enough of these red flags are positive then you need to know how to get help for your teen using drugs now.  Asking for a drug test is not the answer so you need real help and information.

Related posts:

1. Do you Think your Teen is on Drugs? part 2
2. Do you think your teen is on Drugs? part 5: Tips for Recovery and Prevention
3. Do you think your teen is on Drugs? part 4: Resources

Let’s say your teen tells you that they have been smoking pot (marijuana) with friends after school. They have done ecstasy on a few occasions, but nothing regular. They don’t think this is a big deal.  After all, it’s just pot.

Now what do you do?  Maybe you smoked some pot in college and you too feel it is no big deal. 

The views on drugs were completely different in the sixties and seventies. Furthermore, we simply did not know a lot about drugs back then.  Today, we have the advantage of research and experience. If you were to only observe the average life expectancy of the rock stars of the sixties and seventies, the effects of drugs and alcohol have indeed taken their toll; Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon and Elvis Presley are a testament to the fact that life is significantly shortened with drug use.

Today, we recognize that not only do drugs shorten one’s life, but they alter the quality of life as well. For teens, this is even more important because their brain is in the process of making neurological connections that lay the foundation for future complex thought and emotions. By damaging the potential for these connections, these teens continue to grow physically, but remain as teens in their brains. Once they stop the drug use they find themselves STILL having to learn basic skills that will make them appear immature and socially awkward to their adult peers.  This would be frustrating to anyone, but especially a young adult with limited coping skills and resources.

Facts about marijuana include:

• You can become addicted to marijuana.
• Marijuana is the most common drug abused by teens after prescription drugs and alcohol.
• Marijuana effects short term memory which is important for learning things long term
• Marijuana changes the way your body moves.  This is especially challenging for an athlete.

For more information about marijuana, check out NIDA for parents.

A drug is a drug

Please take all types of use seriously. Marijuana in and of itself may not be enough to impress you, but your teen’s willingness to use marijuana and associated behaviors will give you information about red flags to get you motivated to get help.  The earlier help is sought the better the chance you have to help your teen. 

Next time the discussion will be on red flags to look out for.  So, if you still haven’t been motivated to seek help, perhaps specific things to look for will get you in action mode.

Related posts:

1. Do you think your teen is on Drugs? part 3: 6 Red Flags to look for
2. Do you think your Teen is on Drugs?
3. Do you think your teen is on Drugs? part 4: Resources