In an effort to relate and empathize with their children and to try to give the issue a personal perspective, parents sometimes relate stories of their own drug-use and the things they learned not to do, the lessons that they learned. Sometimes these parental anecdotes of past drug use are an attempt to make the situation seem more comfortable and to provide the adolescent or teenager the sense that their parents can relate to their lives and their problems, concerns, and questions regarding drug use. Many parents simply assumed that disclosing their own experiences with drugs to their children was a clever and effective tactic for preventing teen drug use, but a new study suggests that those parents were wrong. The reality, according to the study, seems to be that when parents tell stories of past drug use to their kids those kids are more likely to develop relaxed attitudes regarding drug use and are also more likely to use drugs.
In the study, which was published in the February 2013 issue of Human Communication Research, researchers interviewed 561 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders regarding their views on drug use and the manner in which their parents had talked to them about drug use. The study set out to confirm earlier data from studies that indicated teens were less likely to use drugs if their parents had told them anecdotes and even cautionary tales regarding their own drug use. The new study did not confirm these earlier studies however; in fact, it pointed in the opposite direction and suggested that parents who relate stories of past drug use to their children, even in a cautionary and “lesson learned” kind of way, have children who are in fact more likely to use drugs because of these very conversations regarding drugs.
Why Does Talking to One’s Kids About One’s Own Drug Experiences Cause Increased Drug Use
Why do kids respond in this way to these parental anecdotes and cautionary tales regarding drug use? It seems to many people that the effect of cautionary story telling about drug experiences would be the opposite of what it is. In explaining these phenomena, some experts surmise that when parents talk to their kids about past personal drugs in any fashion or capacity that the kids see that the parents are still doing well despite their drug use and wonder why it should be any different for them.
Some kids ask themselves, “Mom or dad used drugs and they have gone on to live happy and healthy lives, so how bad can using drugs really be?” But while admitting past drug use to children has been shown to be counterproductive, experts also warn that not talking about personal drug use can seem dishonest if the child already suspects or knows about a parent’s prior drug use or experimentation.
What Is The Best Way For Parents To Talk To Their Kids About Drugs
The best way to talk to kids about drugs, researchers say, is to avoid talking about personal experiences with drugs and to instead focus on general negative physical, mental, and social effects of drug use. Also, instead of relating personal stories, it is more effective it seems to relate stories about other people they have known who have had bad experiences with drugs.
Experts stress that the drug talk should occur as early as fifth grade, before a child is likely to come into contact with drugs at school or elsewhere, and that early intervention and education, done in the right way, can be the most effective way of preventing early drug use.
For photos on effective drug prevention lectures go to Flickr.com/photos/Narconon.
