A Guide to Keep Your Kids Alcohol and Drug Free
The teenage years can be years filled with fun and discoveries, for both you and your teen. However, there can also be times of boredom and restlessness which can lead to some teens making poor choices around what they do with their time. One particular bad choice some may make is to experiment with alcohol or drugs.
It’s important to remember, as surveys in Maine have shown, that most kids don’t drink or use drugs. As parents, there are a few strategies you can use to help keep your teen drug and alcohol free. By following these guidelines you can help keep your teens healthy and safe.
Activities and Strategies that will help keep your teenager substance free.
· Take time to plan with your teen how they will spend their down time; while it is important to keep busy, being overscheduled can also be stressful.
· Make a point to have dinner together with the whole family. It doesn’t have to be every night, but three or four nights a week is a good goal.
· Sign a Safe Home Pledge in your community. A Safe Home Pledge says that your home will be a safe environment for your teens’ friends where drugs and alcohol will not be allowed or provided.
· Be your teen’s biggest fan. Take time to acknowledge when they make good decisions and pay attention to their strengths. Also, help them engage in activities that will tap into those strengths.
· If possible, take time off to spend with your child, go late to work or come home early.
· Help your teen develop strategies for saying no to drugs and alcohol. “My Mom would ground me for a month if I got caught doing that.”
· Lock up prescriptions and alcohol.
· Be a good role model, monitor your own alcohol use, plan family events, that do not involve alcohol.
· Don’t reminisce about your wild days spent drinking or partying. Talking like this in front of your teen may give them the impression it is okay to drink.
· Set curfews and enforce them.
· Talk to your child about your rules concerning drugs and alcohol. Talk about consequences for not keeping the rules and be consistent.
· Keep conversations about drugs and alcohol short but frequent, teens won’t focus long enough to hear long lectures, but they’ll hear short messages.
· Keep the door open for your child to discuss issues with you. If use is admitted stay calm and try not to judge. Thank them for their honesty and ask your teen how they plan to handle temptation to use in the future.
· Schedule times when you call or check in with your children. Vary the times you check in.
· Create a child friendly home environment where your child feels comfortable bringing his/her friends home where you can monitor them.
· Check to make sure adults are present when your child goes to a friend’s house. Take time to get to know the parents of your teens’ friends.
· If you are not home limit the number of friends your child is allowed to have over. Also limit how long those friends can stay. Be sure to notify their parents you will not be home to supervise.
Tips
·Remind your teen about your rules around using drugs and alcohol.
·Remind them it is illegal for minors to drink and that illegal drug use can lead to expensive legal trouble.
·What if you catch your teen using? Wait until your child is not under the influence to talk to them.
·Stay calm, remember everyone makes poorchoices sometimes.
·Ask them how frequently they are using and suggest meeting with a professional if they use often and you feel it appropriate
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