I only have a 6 year old so I'm not there yet in my personal life, but I am a mental health therapist at a university and see a lot of students whose substance use started in their teen years.
A question that I think can be very helpful is, "what would it look like if you were worried about your use?" Engaging the kid in a proactive discussion of what it might mean for them to have a "problem" with whatever substance they're using, and then talk about what kind of help you could provide (or facilitate for them) can be great for both parent and kid to figure out where the boundaries are, especially if you want to create an environment in which the basic fact of "he's smoking pot" is not a problem on its face. Then you can say, "well, we talked about how if you were starting to fall behind on your homework/miss out on expectations/break other rules in the house then we might want to revisit the weed, what do you think we should do about it now?" and focus on behaviors stemming from use rather than just the fact of use itself.
I am also a HUGE advocate for Narcan and I love the parent above who said "please don't buy pills from Snapchat". Please make sure that kids/teens are aware that a lot of the pills circulating are pressed pills (i.e. powder that has been compressed to look like a pill) that contain fentanyl and I know I sound like a DARE rep when I say this but it only takes one, especially for kids whose nervous systems do not regularly process opioids. Many states have Narcan available at your local pharmacy without a prescription, so you can keep one in your car or your medicine cabinet because you never know when you are going to need it--and kids should carry it too if there is any sign that they are using themselves or hanging out with people who use. Plus Narcan has zero risk--it has no effect on someone who is not experiencing an opioid overdose. Pills are on a whole other level!!!!!!
I work in higher ed and I just updated my list of tips for sending kids to college (https://wendyrobinson.substack.com/p/before-they-go) to include that parents need to make sure their kids know about Narcan and what the laws are around that in their state). Harm reduction is so important as is being realistic about what college students experiment with in college.
Kathryn, I love the idea of taking the focus off of automatic alarm about use itself and letting people determine when their own use is problematic. Kids/teens/college students/everyone should also know about harm reduction in general, including Narcan but also test strips and how important it is not to use unregulated drugs (i.e., anything you buy online or on the street, except weed) alone. Someone should be there and that someone should have plenty of Narcan.
As a teacher, I had a handful of 24/7 high kids. Our discussions were different because I wasn’t their mom, but I typically found it productive to discuss the 24/7 piece over the drug piece. We’d be concerned if a kid was drinking 24/7, or even doing “positive” things like exercising or studying 24/7. It makes me wonder, what’s going on that you want to be altered all the time? I never got an answer right away- just an invitation to reflect on it. Also, an invitation, what if you didn’t smoke weed before school one day? What might that be like? Usually within a few weeks of having this (and other) conversations, the teen would either cut back or identify what’s bothering them so we could seek out helpful resources. Again- not their mom so way easier to play it cool and calm.
Can I smash a like button on the Legend text? My 4-year-old is definitely in the "what has it got in its pocketses" phase of his life and some weird stuff has made it home recently. But I can't complain; I keep the tip of a crab claw (that he found on the beach and gave me) in my purse?!
With a four year old, I mostly am trying to cut off as many issues as I can at the source. Like yes alcoholism and substance abuse run in families but so does neurodivergence and mental illness? I swear I heard glass shattering when I pointed out to my husband that most of his meth abusing relatives had VERY obvious and untreated ADHD. Like of course they got hooked on meth? It made their brain feel right? So while we’ll get to the substantive conversations when we get there, but my biggest focus is making sure my little neurodivergent kiddo has the foundation to navigate his brain before he gets to the point that abuse is an issue.
I ordered Narcan recently (you can also just get it from the library in Chicago). I have had a lot of talks with my kid about not to take or drink anything someone gives you, because of fentanyl.
I'm sure at 14, they've at least had friends talk about getting high. But I don't know if they'd ever tell me.
But we also go to a lot of breweries. I don't know how to say this is okay for me, but not you. And not this, or that ...
I have started internally drafting up, per the one mom in there, a sliding scale of drug related do's and do nots. Like ideally don't ever do drugs and let your brain be pristine. But also there is a big difference between hitting a vape pen at a party and getting pulled over stoned with a pound of flower in the trunk.
You can say exactly that: "I am not sure how to say that this is OK for me, and not for you. These conversations are hard and I am going to do my best to explain the choices that I make for myself and the limits and expectations we have for you to keep you safe and healthy and happy".
My son is in high school and we are in a state that just legalized cannabis for recreational use, so we've had some conversations but need to have more. One thing I've talked with him about is whether or smoking pot (or cigarettes, I'm 100% NO SMOKING IS OKAY) or using any other substances helps move him closer to the goals he has. He's an athlete and very committed to his sport and so we do talk about how both the health impact of substance use and the possible consequences (e.g. if he gets caught with something illegal and got suspended from school, he's off the school team) could make it harder for him to do the stuff he really loves to do.
We also talk about harm reduction with regards to drinking/getting high and driving and have had the "call me at any time to get a safe ride home and you won't get in trouble" conversation, though he doesn't drive yet. We've also talked about how the fact that he is Black means that there are sometimes great risks and consequences for him than his white friends if he's at a party that gets busted or in a situation where illegal substances are found.
I had maybe three wine coolers in high school and have never tried any drugs, so I do think I will freak out when/if I find out either of my kids has tried something, but I try to remember that my experience is my experience and that they are full people in their own right and they get autonomy over their bodies and choices, so I'll process my inevitable freakout with someone else and not AT them.
There are a lot of good things about legalization but from a parents' point of view it makes it a lot harder to take out that one black and white "Well it's against the law, periodt" argument.
I think talking to kids about law enforcement around all this is also really important as you say. It's not just about the law but LIOs' personal attitudes and biases to worry about.
It isn't always easy but having older kids is also fun in lots of unexpected ways too, so you have that look forward to as well.
This conversation is making me realize that I would actually be a lot more upset about my kid smoking regular cigarettes than I would be about them having an edible, which is interesting to think about why that is.
I, uh am pretty disturbed by a lot of this! Of course kids are going to experiment but I strongly feel like the line needs to be held of NOT drinking and doing drugs while underage. Kids are going to rebel no matter what--I see no benefit to being permissible about it. Also, WEED IS SO BAD FOR DEVELOPING BRAINS! Everyone knows that pothead whose memory just... isn't. My husband and I both smoked too much while we were young adults and we both feel like it permanently affected our cognition. There was an excellent NYT article on talking to teens about drugs and the research strongly advises to talk to your kids about how dangerous it truly is to their not-fully-formed brains and to also not go into detail about your own experiences/relationship with it. Most of the advice here is pretty bad!!
thanks for reading! think there is a big chasm between what we so far know is scientifically true re: drugs vs. what we know kids will do on their own. I don't know if anyone was advising "Be cool with your kids doing drugs" but trying to walk the line of their kids doing the least amount of bad to themselves while also remaining there as loving figures who don't need to be lied to.
I know a very small handful of people as an adult who have never tried weed and I can't figure out what about them made them always avoid it. I think it is internal and not necessarily because their parents made a good argument for it.
Jun 14, 2023·edited Jun 14, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
I am one of those people who never tried it. We had a lot of addiction issues in my extended family on both sides (mainly alcohol for my mom’s generation/my grandparents generation, and alcohol/weed/opioids for my cousins). My mom was always super frank and upfront about the realities of addiction in our family and what it did to people, and that addiction is genetic. It truly put me off ever trying drugs and which meant generally I gravitated towards friend groups who weren’t even that into drinking much less drugs. I think her honesty really worked well and I plan to take the same approach with my kid, he is a toddler now but will talk to him as early as elementary school about these things. I’m sure I sound like a huge boring square but I don’t really care because I’m not dead or living in a shelter like some of my cousins. Just wanted to share that perspective!
Thank you! I think that is a very important POV. And I don't think you sound like a square. You smoke weed long enough you realize it's a marker of coolness. so I've heard.
I can relate. I stayed away from everything — even alcohol. I watched my stepdad struggle with an alcohol use disorder and then die from cirrhosis after a long illness when I was teen. After seeing that happen, I just had no interest in any substance.
I'm a never tried and it is one part lack of opportunity (literally nobody ever offered me pot until I was 43), one part awareness of lots of addiction issues in my family, and an even bigger part that I do not like to feel out of control of myself and the fear of not knowing what being high would feel like made any drugs seem unappealing.
I did, however, have nitrous oxide at the dentist for the first time a few years ago. I loved it and was like "OH! *This* is why people get high!"
Jun 14, 2023·edited Jun 14, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
As someone from a family / household with substance addiction I was a 98.9 % teetotalling teen re alcohol, and no drugs at all (other relatives coming to very very bad ends in my childhood.) By high school I wasn't interested in losing control, being around drunk/high people and/or scraping them off the floor. My parents never had to tell me no, exactly? I feel this strongly now : "trying to walk the line of their kids doing the least amount of bad to themselves while also remaining there as loving figures who don't need to be lied to." Edited to add: I was well aware of 12 Step language and the genetic addiction connection before I went to college, where it was legal for me to drink by 18, and I did so very cautiously.
My husband and I both were like this as teens (also, growing up around cigarette smoking parents, neither of us ever smoked. This was part of the internal pot ick for me, though I did try eventually, and lost interest.) But now, where we live, our 8 year old has grown up walking through clouds of pot smoke on our block and many other places, knows what the smell is, and kinda likes it. In public space is one thing, but almost daily, we can smell it in our living space (closed windows only do so much! ) I think of it like screens: pot is now part of the lived environment. There is some sort of poetic non-justice that we've made the choice our whole lives to NOT consume in this way, yet now we are *not* having a choice about whether we all get a contact high in our living room. We try to be matter of fact about it, and part of the conversation is --it's clear a lot of people do this, but we don't, and here's what you need to know to stay safe.
Everyone needs to parent in their own way, of course. I don't think anyone is saying that we should downplay the harm that drugs can cause to a developing brain, but as with any abstinence-only model it can leave you unprepared if your kid is like "um yes I hear that but I'm going to do it anyway". It can be good to have a backup plan and a way to talk to your kid if they are choosing to use despite knowing the harms (which is a tricky proposition since that underdeveloped brain of theirs isn't actually able to see long-term consequences as clearly as ours are). Honestly your perspective of, "hey I smoked a lot of pot as a teen and I regret it for these concrete reasons" might be a really important thing for a kid to hear.
I also think about this with drinking someday which I am probably more scared of than weed in terms of how much kids think they can/ought to really destroy themselves with it. I don't know if I can stop you from drinking at a party but I really hope I never get a call from your R.A. that you are in the hospital because you poisoned yourself.
We send kids to college assuming they will drink but we never teach them how to do it safely because it's "technically illegal"--it's like if we left car keys on the table and assumed kids would figure out how to drive but we didn't give them any instruction. A to C is I can't stop you from drinking at a party and please don't go to the hospital (a very good specific behavior that you are not OK with) but your typical 18 year old does not know exactly HOW to prevent themselves from going to the hospital. So we have to fill in the B, which is usually do not pour 8 shots into a glass, mix it with something, consume it in 30 minutes because it tastes delicious, and consider it *one* drink. But we are also scared to fill in the B because that feels like admitting we have "failed" in preventing them from drinking--but we can do so much more to reduce their harm with these conversations.
I'm coming from a grandparent viewpoint now, and with the kids and now the grandkids the basic line of communication is 1) there's a difference between use and abuse, know what that is; and 2) of course I'm being hypocritical when I say that you shouldn't do it just because I did, because in hindsight those were some rather awful choices I made in the 70s.
Also, there's a lot of difference to me between alcohol, cannabis, and the load of other, harder, more lethal drugs. I think cannabis is medicinal, and used correctly can help a lot of conditions that otherwise require addictive and damaging drugs. Alcohol is legal, and can be used responsibly. Speaking from personal and anecdotal experience, a lot of drug use in kids is done to ease mental issues, and the ease of getting access to high-powered pharmaceuticals is a bigger danger than eating some edibles. That should be a part of the continuing conversation between parent and child - the "why" of their usage.
I remember when I was in high school, my older brother told me that something he noticed with his friends is that once you start drinking (alcohol was the drug of choice for his high school class), it becomes really hard to have a good time without it. He said it so observationally, not in a DARE kind of way, that it really stuck with me. I didn't drink until I was 21, and by that point, all of my friends were so excited that I was joining them I didn't pay for alcohol for nearly the entire year we had left at college. I teach middle school, and when drugs and alcohol are brought up, I share an age appropriate version of this story.
My only other advice is to always lead with questions, NOT accusations.
Oh dear. I know how I'm going to handle alcohol when the time comes for my little guy - the way my parents did with me (we have a different cultural background with it). You can have sips from my glass as a kid, and we will open a bottle of nice wine together or a nice beer on your sixteenth birthday and I will initiate you into drinking for pleasure and not to get blotto. And we will talk about having food with your alcohol and also I will strongly talk up how a buzz can be nice but getting completely drunk and throwing up in the bushes is yucky and also do you really want to be around other people when you have no control over your body/yourself? Who knows what they will do?? And once he is in college, share the name of a good drink or two to order in public (and what should never be ordered because it is a terrible idea for at least 12 different reasons, like a Long Island Iced Tea). Basically teaching him how to enjoy and manage something that is a little risky and do it with him first so it's not something forbidden or something his friends teach him how to do.
But weed... so much trickier. Let alone hard drugs. It would be so nice if he would hold off on the weed until his 20s. I guess lots of open-ended conversations will be in order. It's hard to imagine since mine is still so little and in the "look, Mommy, look!" phase of wanting to share everything with me.
I feel like I want to also call out that conversations about drugs/substance use are also a place where parents (especially white parents) should call out that the consequences for getting caught with illegal substances or legal substances while underage can be significantly worse for non-white kids. They need to think about what risks they might also be creating for their Black friends if they are in situations where law enforcement could become involved. It is a bummer to talk about, but I have to live with the knowledge that what can be a slap on the wrist for a white kid can be a much more dangerous situation for my Black kids, so we talk also about what to do if they ever are stopped or arrested...and why our family motto is "always lawyer up and never trust the cops"
My son is 30. He's in the Army, currently deployed to Romania. He's married & has a baby girl. He's a graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo, with a dual degree in Film & English. He had no lower than a 3.5 average all through college. He got a job at the age of fifteen & he has never been without a job. I mention all this because my son smoked marijuana from the age of twelve until he got clean to join the Army, after he graduated from college.
The edibles & legal weed sold in the dispensaries are no more potent than the weed we smoked &/or baked into brownies back in the day. There was always what we called "dirt" weed & "killer" weed & you paid for what you got. I think many of the older people who are saying that the weed nowadays is SO much stronger haven't smoked in many years & have lost their tolerance & it just seems stronger. This is would be true of someone who hadn't taken a drink in many years, or if you laid off all forms of sugar & then you ate a Snickers bar ... it would hit you like a ton of bricks.
Either a kid is determined to succeed or he/she is not. That's the end of it.
As far as drinking & drugging is concerned, there's a lot less of it with the teens of today than there was with my generation (I came up in the 70s). Maybe because they're so expensive; maybe because they're legal & they're not cool anymore. But part of growing up is doing stuff you know is going to piss off or upset your parents. My son did his share of that; all kids do.
I hope things go well with you & your child. As drugs go, cannabis is better than the other options; I wouldn't want my kid to get into drinking or cocaine or opiates & definitely not smoking cigarettes. All my friends who smoked are now dead or dying.
I think it's important for white parents to be educating their white kids about systemic racism and how it relates to thing like marijuana possession. I didn't see anyone else bring that up in the comment sections, so I wanted to state that. How consumption and prosecution involving any substance absolutely changes given your race, your class, your education status, and of course what state you live in. We live in a state where marijuana is legal, and have been in hippie communities where smoking pot in front of kids or at a party is just as common as drinking- so we talk about it in a similar way- as well note that today's strains ARE much more potent than the weed of generations before. We also talk about why people use substances, and other ways to feel that- i.e. get a dopamine hit. I think education, harm reduction, and also taking into consideration if things like substance abuse and addiction run in ones family are crucial to talking to teens.
I'm baffled by people here saying they're cool with their kids using drugs around them. I suspect that's about parents giving themselves a false sense of control over their teens and about enabling their own adult habits. As with all parenting, there's no one-shot solution, and no solid advice was provided here (no research given).
Educationally-speaking, it's best to provide kids with knowledge and confidence and balance in all aspects of life and as early as possible so that they are empowered to make the best decisions they can. The same can be said of teaching kids about sex/consent.
Being "super chill" about brain altering substances with your kid is just lazy.
Hey Kim: I agree with you about giving kids all the info and research we know but what research shows re: drugs and what kids will hear from parents are very different.
And I agree not everyone's takes here are for everyone. But just to defend the people who took the time to share with me, nobody here said they are chill or cool with what their kids get up to--just realistic.
In these situations, these are mostly kids for whom the genie is already out of the bottle. What to say when it's already been going down, not what you want them to know about drugs.
I should say that although I appreciate the funny takes on parenting that this newsletter provides, for a topic like this, simply providing people's "thoughts" is a bit irresponsible without also providing research on addictive disorders, brain development, teen psychology, etc.
Maybe this was just a bit too heavy a topic for this outlet.
I only have a 6 year old so I'm not there yet in my personal life, but I am a mental health therapist at a university and see a lot of students whose substance use started in their teen years.
A question that I think can be very helpful is, "what would it look like if you were worried about your use?" Engaging the kid in a proactive discussion of what it might mean for them to have a "problem" with whatever substance they're using, and then talk about what kind of help you could provide (or facilitate for them) can be great for both parent and kid to figure out where the boundaries are, especially if you want to create an environment in which the basic fact of "he's smoking pot" is not a problem on its face. Then you can say, "well, we talked about how if you were starting to fall behind on your homework/miss out on expectations/break other rules in the house then we might want to revisit the weed, what do you think we should do about it now?" and focus on behaviors stemming from use rather than just the fact of use itself.
I am also a HUGE advocate for Narcan and I love the parent above who said "please don't buy pills from Snapchat". Please make sure that kids/teens are aware that a lot of the pills circulating are pressed pills (i.e. powder that has been compressed to look like a pill) that contain fentanyl and I know I sound like a DARE rep when I say this but it only takes one, especially for kids whose nervous systems do not regularly process opioids. Many states have Narcan available at your local pharmacy without a prescription, so you can keep one in your car or your medicine cabinet because you never know when you are going to need it--and kids should carry it too if there is any sign that they are using themselves or hanging out with people who use. Plus Narcan has zero risk--it has no effect on someone who is not experiencing an opioid overdose. Pills are on a whole other level!!!!!!
Thank you Kathryn!! Your perspective is so useful.
I work in higher ed and I just updated my list of tips for sending kids to college (https://wendyrobinson.substack.com/p/before-they-go) to include that parents need to make sure their kids know about Narcan and what the laws are around that in their state). Harm reduction is so important as is being realistic about what college students experiment with in college.
thank you Wendy!
Kathryn, I love the idea of taking the focus off of automatic alarm about use itself and letting people determine when their own use is problematic. Kids/teens/college students/everyone should also know about harm reduction in general, including Narcan but also test strips and how important it is not to use unregulated drugs (i.e., anything you buy online or on the street, except weed) alone. Someone should be there and that someone should have plenty of Narcan.
As a teacher, I had a handful of 24/7 high kids. Our discussions were different because I wasn’t their mom, but I typically found it productive to discuss the 24/7 piece over the drug piece. We’d be concerned if a kid was drinking 24/7, or even doing “positive” things like exercising or studying 24/7. It makes me wonder, what’s going on that you want to be altered all the time? I never got an answer right away- just an invitation to reflect on it. Also, an invitation, what if you didn’t smoke weed before school one day? What might that be like? Usually within a few weeks of having this (and other) conversations, the teen would either cut back or identify what’s bothering them so we could seek out helpful resources. Again- not their mom so way easier to play it cool and calm.
Can I smash a like button on the Legend text? My 4-year-old is definitely in the "what has it got in its pocketses" phase of his life and some weird stuff has made it home recently. But I can't complain; I keep the tip of a crab claw (that he found on the beach and gave me) in my purse?!
With a four year old, I mostly am trying to cut off as many issues as I can at the source. Like yes alcoholism and substance abuse run in families but so does neurodivergence and mental illness? I swear I heard glass shattering when I pointed out to my husband that most of his meth abusing relatives had VERY obvious and untreated ADHD. Like of course they got hooked on meth? It made their brain feel right? So while we’ll get to the substantive conversations when we get there, but my biggest focus is making sure my little neurodivergent kiddo has the foundation to navigate his brain before he gets to the point that abuse is an issue.
also I wanted to drop this link from my colleague, the wonderful and perfect Dan Kois, for all of you who have teens/tweens: https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/12/narcan-kits-free-parent-instructions-overdose.html
thank you!!!
I ordered Narcan recently (you can also just get it from the library in Chicago). I have had a lot of talks with my kid about not to take or drink anything someone gives you, because of fentanyl.
I'm sure at 14, they've at least had friends talk about getting high. But I don't know if they'd ever tell me.
But we also go to a lot of breweries. I don't know how to say this is okay for me, but not you. And not this, or that ...
I have started internally drafting up, per the one mom in there, a sliding scale of drug related do's and do nots. Like ideally don't ever do drugs and let your brain be pristine. But also there is a big difference between hitting a vape pen at a party and getting pulled over stoned with a pound of flower in the trunk.
Please disregard if you don't want advice!
You can say exactly that: "I am not sure how to say that this is OK for me, and not for you. These conversations are hard and I am going to do my best to explain the choices that I make for myself and the limits and expectations we have for you to keep you safe and healthy and happy".
Love advice, and this is great advice!
My son is in high school and we are in a state that just legalized cannabis for recreational use, so we've had some conversations but need to have more. One thing I've talked with him about is whether or smoking pot (or cigarettes, I'm 100% NO SMOKING IS OKAY) or using any other substances helps move him closer to the goals he has. He's an athlete and very committed to his sport and so we do talk about how both the health impact of substance use and the possible consequences (e.g. if he gets caught with something illegal and got suspended from school, he's off the school team) could make it harder for him to do the stuff he really loves to do.
We also talk about harm reduction with regards to drinking/getting high and driving and have had the "call me at any time to get a safe ride home and you won't get in trouble" conversation, though he doesn't drive yet. We've also talked about how the fact that he is Black means that there are sometimes great risks and consequences for him than his white friends if he's at a party that gets busted or in a situation where illegal substances are found.
I had maybe three wine coolers in high school and have never tried any drugs, so I do think I will freak out when/if I find out either of my kids has tried something, but I try to remember that my experience is my experience and that they are full people in their own right and they get autonomy over their bodies and choices, so I'll process my inevitable freakout with someone else and not AT them.
There are a lot of good things about legalization but from a parents' point of view it makes it a lot harder to take out that one black and white "Well it's against the law, periodt" argument.
I think talking to kids about law enforcement around all this is also really important as you say. It's not just about the law but LIOs' personal attitudes and biases to worry about.
Kids getting older is not as easy as I hoped.
It isn't always easy but having older kids is also fun in lots of unexpected ways too, so you have that look forward to as well.
This conversation is making me realize that I would actually be a lot more upset about my kid smoking regular cigarettes than I would be about them having an edible, which is interesting to think about why that is.
because edibles are FUN and cigarettes STINK (and are so expensive)
;)
I, uh am pretty disturbed by a lot of this! Of course kids are going to experiment but I strongly feel like the line needs to be held of NOT drinking and doing drugs while underage. Kids are going to rebel no matter what--I see no benefit to being permissible about it. Also, WEED IS SO BAD FOR DEVELOPING BRAINS! Everyone knows that pothead whose memory just... isn't. My husband and I both smoked too much while we were young adults and we both feel like it permanently affected our cognition. There was an excellent NYT article on talking to teens about drugs and the research strongly advises to talk to your kids about how dangerous it truly is to their not-fully-formed brains and to also not go into detail about your own experiences/relationship with it. Most of the advice here is pretty bad!!
thanks for reading! think there is a big chasm between what we so far know is scientifically true re: drugs vs. what we know kids will do on their own. I don't know if anyone was advising "Be cool with your kids doing drugs" but trying to walk the line of their kids doing the least amount of bad to themselves while also remaining there as loving figures who don't need to be lied to.
I know a very small handful of people as an adult who have never tried weed and I can't figure out what about them made them always avoid it. I think it is internal and not necessarily because their parents made a good argument for it.
I am one of those people who never tried it. We had a lot of addiction issues in my extended family on both sides (mainly alcohol for my mom’s generation/my grandparents generation, and alcohol/weed/opioids for my cousins). My mom was always super frank and upfront about the realities of addiction in our family and what it did to people, and that addiction is genetic. It truly put me off ever trying drugs and which meant generally I gravitated towards friend groups who weren’t even that into drinking much less drugs. I think her honesty really worked well and I plan to take the same approach with my kid, he is a toddler now but will talk to him as early as elementary school about these things. I’m sure I sound like a huge boring square but I don’t really care because I’m not dead or living in a shelter like some of my cousins. Just wanted to share that perspective!
Thank you! I think that is a very important POV. And I don't think you sound like a square. You smoke weed long enough you realize it's a marker of coolness. so I've heard.
I can relate. I stayed away from everything — even alcohol. I watched my stepdad struggle with an alcohol use disorder and then die from cirrhosis after a long illness when I was teen. After seeing that happen, I just had no interest in any substance.
Yes.
I'm a never tried and it is one part lack of opportunity (literally nobody ever offered me pot until I was 43), one part awareness of lots of addiction issues in my family, and an even bigger part that I do not like to feel out of control of myself and the fear of not knowing what being high would feel like made any drugs seem unappealing.
I did, however, have nitrous oxide at the dentist for the first time a few years ago. I loved it and was like "OH! *This* is why people get high!"
As someone from a family / household with substance addiction I was a 98.9 % teetotalling teen re alcohol, and no drugs at all (other relatives coming to very very bad ends in my childhood.) By high school I wasn't interested in losing control, being around drunk/high people and/or scraping them off the floor. My parents never had to tell me no, exactly? I feel this strongly now : "trying to walk the line of their kids doing the least amount of bad to themselves while also remaining there as loving figures who don't need to be lied to." Edited to add: I was well aware of 12 Step language and the genetic addiction connection before I went to college, where it was legal for me to drink by 18, and I did so very cautiously.
My husband and I both were like this as teens (also, growing up around cigarette smoking parents, neither of us ever smoked. This was part of the internal pot ick for me, though I did try eventually, and lost interest.) But now, where we live, our 8 year old has grown up walking through clouds of pot smoke on our block and many other places, knows what the smell is, and kinda likes it. In public space is one thing, but almost daily, we can smell it in our living space (closed windows only do so much! ) I think of it like screens: pot is now part of the lived environment. There is some sort of poetic non-justice that we've made the choice our whole lives to NOT consume in this way, yet now we are *not* having a choice about whether we all get a contact high in our living room. We try to be matter of fact about it, and part of the conversation is --it's clear a lot of people do this, but we don't, and here's what you need to know to stay safe.
Everyone needs to parent in their own way, of course. I don't think anyone is saying that we should downplay the harm that drugs can cause to a developing brain, but as with any abstinence-only model it can leave you unprepared if your kid is like "um yes I hear that but I'm going to do it anyway". It can be good to have a backup plan and a way to talk to your kid if they are choosing to use despite knowing the harms (which is a tricky proposition since that underdeveloped brain of theirs isn't actually able to see long-term consequences as clearly as ours are). Honestly your perspective of, "hey I smoked a lot of pot as a teen and I regret it for these concrete reasons" might be a really important thing for a kid to hear.
I also think about this with drinking someday which I am probably more scared of than weed in terms of how much kids think they can/ought to really destroy themselves with it. I don't know if I can stop you from drinking at a party but I really hope I never get a call from your R.A. that you are in the hospital because you poisoned yourself.
We send kids to college assuming they will drink but we never teach them how to do it safely because it's "technically illegal"--it's like if we left car keys on the table and assumed kids would figure out how to drive but we didn't give them any instruction. A to C is I can't stop you from drinking at a party and please don't go to the hospital (a very good specific behavior that you are not OK with) but your typical 18 year old does not know exactly HOW to prevent themselves from going to the hospital. So we have to fill in the B, which is usually do not pour 8 shots into a glass, mix it with something, consume it in 30 minutes because it tastes delicious, and consider it *one* drink. But we are also scared to fill in the B because that feels like admitting we have "failed" in preventing them from drinking--but we can do so much more to reduce their harm with these conversations.
You can set the line at NOT drinking and doing drugs while underage, but there's zero guarantee kids will stay behind that line
I'm coming from a grandparent viewpoint now, and with the kids and now the grandkids the basic line of communication is 1) there's a difference between use and abuse, know what that is; and 2) of course I'm being hypocritical when I say that you shouldn't do it just because I did, because in hindsight those were some rather awful choices I made in the 70s.
Also, there's a lot of difference to me between alcohol, cannabis, and the load of other, harder, more lethal drugs. I think cannabis is medicinal, and used correctly can help a lot of conditions that otherwise require addictive and damaging drugs. Alcohol is legal, and can be used responsibly. Speaking from personal and anecdotal experience, a lot of drug use in kids is done to ease mental issues, and the ease of getting access to high-powered pharmaceuticals is a bigger danger than eating some edibles. That should be a part of the continuing conversation between parent and child - the "why" of their usage.
I remember when I was in high school, my older brother told me that something he noticed with his friends is that once you start drinking (alcohol was the drug of choice for his high school class), it becomes really hard to have a good time without it. He said it so observationally, not in a DARE kind of way, that it really stuck with me. I didn't drink until I was 21, and by that point, all of my friends were so excited that I was joining them I didn't pay for alcohol for nearly the entire year we had left at college. I teach middle school, and when drugs and alcohol are brought up, I share an age appropriate version of this story.
My only other advice is to always lead with questions, NOT accusations.
Oh dear. I know how I'm going to handle alcohol when the time comes for my little guy - the way my parents did with me (we have a different cultural background with it). You can have sips from my glass as a kid, and we will open a bottle of nice wine together or a nice beer on your sixteenth birthday and I will initiate you into drinking for pleasure and not to get blotto. And we will talk about having food with your alcohol and also I will strongly talk up how a buzz can be nice but getting completely drunk and throwing up in the bushes is yucky and also do you really want to be around other people when you have no control over your body/yourself? Who knows what they will do?? And once he is in college, share the name of a good drink or two to order in public (and what should never be ordered because it is a terrible idea for at least 12 different reasons, like a Long Island Iced Tea). Basically teaching him how to enjoy and manage something that is a little risky and do it with him first so it's not something forbidden or something his friends teach him how to do.
But weed... so much trickier. Let alone hard drugs. It would be so nice if he would hold off on the weed until his 20s. I guess lots of open-ended conversations will be in order. It's hard to imagine since mine is still so little and in the "look, Mommy, look!" phase of wanting to share everything with me.
I know, I kind of want to say please don't do anything I don't want to think about until you leave this house. As if that will help!
I feel like I want to also call out that conversations about drugs/substance use are also a place where parents (especially white parents) should call out that the consequences for getting caught with illegal substances or legal substances while underage can be significantly worse for non-white kids. They need to think about what risks they might also be creating for their Black friends if they are in situations where law enforcement could become involved. It is a bummer to talk about, but I have to live with the knowledge that what can be a slap on the wrist for a white kid can be a much more dangerous situation for my Black kids, so we talk also about what to do if they ever are stopped or arrested...and why our family motto is "always lawyer up and never trust the cops"
HERE’S A BAGGY FOR YOUR WORM.
We mostly have rocks now (almost 3). Laundry rocks, bookshelf rocks, middle of the night not a Lego rocks, etc. Can’t wait to get to worms!
Figuring out what to do with rocks you've pulled out of the washing machine is a fun li'l task I never had before kids.
My son is 30. He's in the Army, currently deployed to Romania. He's married & has a baby girl. He's a graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo, with a dual degree in Film & English. He had no lower than a 3.5 average all through college. He got a job at the age of fifteen & he has never been without a job. I mention all this because my son smoked marijuana from the age of twelve until he got clean to join the Army, after he graduated from college.
The edibles & legal weed sold in the dispensaries are no more potent than the weed we smoked &/or baked into brownies back in the day. There was always what we called "dirt" weed & "killer" weed & you paid for what you got. I think many of the older people who are saying that the weed nowadays is SO much stronger haven't smoked in many years & have lost their tolerance & it just seems stronger. This is would be true of someone who hadn't taken a drink in many years, or if you laid off all forms of sugar & then you ate a Snickers bar ... it would hit you like a ton of bricks.
Either a kid is determined to succeed or he/she is not. That's the end of it.
As far as drinking & drugging is concerned, there's a lot less of it with the teens of today than there was with my generation (I came up in the 70s). Maybe because they're so expensive; maybe because they're legal & they're not cool anymore. But part of growing up is doing stuff you know is going to piss off or upset your parents. My son did his share of that; all kids do.
I hope things go well with you & your child. As drugs go, cannabis is better than the other options; I wouldn't want my kid to get into drinking or cocaine or opiates & definitely not smoking cigarettes. All my friends who smoked are now dead or dying.
I think it's important for white parents to be educating their white kids about systemic racism and how it relates to thing like marijuana possession. I didn't see anyone else bring that up in the comment sections, so I wanted to state that. How consumption and prosecution involving any substance absolutely changes given your race, your class, your education status, and of course what state you live in. We live in a state where marijuana is legal, and have been in hippie communities where smoking pot in front of kids or at a party is just as common as drinking- so we talk about it in a similar way- as well note that today's strains ARE much more potent than the weed of generations before. We also talk about why people use substances, and other ways to feel that- i.e. get a dopamine hit. I think education, harm reduction, and also taking into consideration if things like substance abuse and addiction run in ones family are crucial to talking to teens.
I'm baffled by people here saying they're cool with their kids using drugs around them. I suspect that's about parents giving themselves a false sense of control over their teens and about enabling their own adult habits. As with all parenting, there's no one-shot solution, and no solid advice was provided here (no research given).
Educationally-speaking, it's best to provide kids with knowledge and confidence and balance in all aspects of life and as early as possible so that they are empowered to make the best decisions they can. The same can be said of teaching kids about sex/consent.
Being "super chill" about brain altering substances with your kid is just lazy.
Hey Kim: I agree with you about giving kids all the info and research we know but what research shows re: drugs and what kids will hear from parents are very different.
And I agree not everyone's takes here are for everyone. But just to defend the people who took the time to share with me, nobody here said they are chill or cool with what their kids get up to--just realistic.
In these situations, these are mostly kids for whom the genie is already out of the bottle. What to say when it's already been going down, not what you want them to know about drugs.
Fair enough, and thank you.
I should say that although I appreciate the funny takes on parenting that this newsletter provides, for a topic like this, simply providing people's "thoughts" is a bit irresponsible without also providing research on addictive disorders, brain development, teen psychology, etc.
Maybe this was just a bit too heavy a topic for this outlet.