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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:
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 alcohol, tobacco and other 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:
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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.
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Regular parent-child rituals. 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 substance-free children.
2. Know! how to get involved in their activities, know their friends, know where they're going and what they're doing.
Use the specific actions below to significantly reduce the chance of your child becoming involved with alcohol, tobacco or other drugs. Some of these actions, like being sure your child is supervised in the hours after school, may seem like common sense. And some may meet with resistance from preteens who are naturally striving to achieve independence from their parents. But all the measures listed below are critically important in making sure that your child's life is structured in such a way that alcohol, tobacco and other drugs have no place in it.
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If possible, arrange to have your children looked after and engaged from 3 to 5 p.m. Encourage them to get involved with youth groups, arts, music, sports, community service and academic clubs.
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Make sure children who are unattended for periods during the day feel your presence. Give them a schedule and set limits on their behavior. Give them household chores to accomplish. Enforce a strict phone-in-to-you policy. Leave notes for them around the house. Provide easy-to-find snacks.
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Get to know the parents of your child's friends. Exchange phone numbers and addresses. Have everyone agree to forbid each others' children from consuming alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs in their homes, and pledge that you will inform each other if one of you becomes aware of a child who violates this pact.
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Call parents whose home is to be used for a party. Make sure they can assure you that no alcoholic beverages or illegal substances will be dispensed. Don't be afraid to check out the party yourself to see that adult supervision is in place.
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Make it easy for your child to leave a place where substances are being used. Discuss in advance how to contact you or another designated adult in order to get a ride home. If another adult provides the transportation, be up and available to talk about the incident when your child arrives home.
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Set curfews and enforce them. Weekend curfews might range from 9 p.m. for a fifth-grader to 12:30 a.m. for a senior in high school.
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Encourage open dialogue with your children about their experiences. Tell your child, "I love you and trust you, but I don't trust the world around you, and I need to know what's going on in your life so I can be a good parent to you."
3. Know! how to create clear, consistent expectations and enforce them.
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When it comes to dangerous substances like alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, don't assume that your children know where you stand. State your position clearly; if you're ambiguous, children may be tempted to use.
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Tell your children that you forbid them to use alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs because you love them. Make it clear that this rule holds true even at other people's houses.
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Discuss the consequences of breaking the rules,
what the punishment will be and how it will be carried out. Consequences
must go hand-in-hand with limits so that your child
understands that there's a predictable outcome to his choosing
a particular course of action.
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Always let your children know how happy you are that they respect the rules of the household by praising them. Emphasize the things your children do right instead of focusing on what's wrong. When parents are quicker to praise than to criticize, children learn to feel good about themselves, and they develop the self-confidence to trust their own judgment.
4. Know! how to talk early and often about alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
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Show your child that you're ready to give answers at any time, even if the topics make you uncomfortable. You'll forge a trusting relationship, and your child will feel comfortable coming to you with concerns because he or she knows you take her seriously.
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Be a good listener.
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Steer conversations to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs and why they're harmful. Teenagers who say they've learned a lot about the risks of drugs from their parents are much less likely to try marijuana than those who say they learned nothing from them.
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Take advantage of everyday "teachable moments":
o Newspapers are full of the consequences of alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse. Take your examples right off the front page.
o Watch TV with your children, and ask them what they think when substance use is shown.
o Whenever you see an anti-drug commercial on TV, use it as an opening to talk with your children about alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
5. Know! how to discuss the consequences of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use.
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To help your children make good choices during this critical phase, you should:
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Make sure they're well versed in the reasons to avoid alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs;
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Get to know their friends by taking them to and from after-school activities, games, the library, and movies (while being sensitive to their need to feel independent);
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Volunteer for activities where you can observe your child at school;
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Get acquainted with the parents of your children's friends and learn about their children's interests and habits. If it seems that your child is attracted to those with bad habits, reiterate why substance use is unacceptable.
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