Kids' Drug Use Increases (Pt.3)

(Continued from January 8, 2011) ...... One of my beliefs in the rise in drug taking, smoking, and drinking, is the fact that our children are not as carefully watched as they used to be in the good ol’ days. As children, all of us knew that one slightly less-than-favorable act in our neighborhood probably meant that a few telephone calls would be made to the parents’ house!

Additionally, our parents always made sure that they knew where we were, with whom we were spending time, 100% nixed any relationships that they believed would not be healthy for us.

As I wrote back on January 23, 2010 (http://paulwreeves.blogspot.com/2010/01/teen-drug-abuse-part-2.html), “Again, it goes back to peer pressure, kids feeling unloved, and drug use taking the place of good friends and actively involved parents. After all, no matter who lets the kids down, their old friend “marijuana” is always ready to comfort them. That, coupled with the fact that marijuana is readily accessible, provides a double-edged sword to drug use among teens!

Again, before it is too late, check out everything that your kids are doing, with whom they are doing it, and monitor their expected arrival times. It only takes one lapse in parental responsibility for a child to dive into the deep end of the drug use pool.

Publish Post

Are you scared or alarmed? Good, you need to be. Without question, after seeing literally hundreds of students and parents over the years in my office to discus this exact issue, drug use among our teens is at an all-time high, it’s getting worse, and our kids see no problem with it. Your time to be involved is now. Yes, they’ll think that you’re a pain in the neck, but at least they’ll be alive and healthy. Oh, and a good back rub can take care of that pain in the neck!”

Of course, the bottom line is this – our kids are drinking, taking hardcore drugs, and smoking marijuana at alarming rates! Yes, I know – we have to work harder than our parents did to protect our kids. We have to hide medicine, we have to hide alcohol, we have to keep checking on our kids to make sure that they are following the rules and expectations, and, yes, it can be quite tiring.

Keep a close eye on your kids, their Internet activity, their friends, their telephone calls, and especially their whereabouts when they are not in your home – you need to make sure that your child does not become one of the 20% of our kids who are smoking marijuana, drinking, or taking hardcore drugs. Also, be sure that you know what your kids are doing each day (and with whom!) between the time that school dismisses and the time that you get home.

Again, as I have said so often, nobody said that parenting would be easy. However, by watching your kids closely and putting safeguards in place, you can help to deter the negative behavior that has become so prevalent with our kids today. Remember, it only takes a few moments to smoke a marijuana cigarette, drink alcohol, or take hardcore drugs. 

Keep your eyes on your kids! Sure, they might not like it, their friends might mock you, perhaps even other parents might look at you with disdain, but the last laugh is with you and your kids when the day comes that you realize that your children have made it to adulthood without trying or experimenting with the evils or drugs or alcohol.

Also, please pass along any safeguards that you have put in place with your kids and I might use them in a future post. We’re all in this together!

Hang in there and keep up the great work with your kids!

Paul W. Reeves