#29. How to Keep Your Teen Off Drugs
As a parent, you certainly realize the importance of focusing on the growth and development of your children. It is all about ensuring their safety and wellbeing and further strengthening your relationship with them. As your children grow, they will interact with different people, and with that, the risk of exposure to different dangers to their existence and wellbeing will also increase at an exponential rate. At this stage, you are like a fortress protecting them. You are their great line of defence which will help them keep safe from all the dangers that surround them.
Drug abuse has increased amongst young people in the past several years. Your children are also at risk and that is why you should be concerned about this issue to ensure that your children do not end up getting addicted to them. In this regard, the most important thing you can do is talk with them openly about this topic and search for measures through which you can effectively prevent them from gaining access to drugs in the first place. However, the good news for parents according to research studies is that most children refuse drug abuse in the first place, but at the same time 25% of all teenagers have been reported to have smoked marijuana by the time they turned 16. While the use of many addictive and potentially dangerous drugs such as heroin and cocaine has decreased, 8% of all children have admitted using them.
There is no job tougher than being a parent and discussing the subject of drug abuse is going to be pretty difficult. However, such a discussion would have a long term impact on the lives of your children, so keep this in mind to encourage yourself to open up to your children about this topic. Before you can start, the first thing you will have to do is to set yourself as an example. Children follow their parents as role models more than anyone else, and if you exhibit positive behaviour, than your children are bound to follow your traits, including as far as drug abuse is concerned. Even if you think your children are largely ignorant of how you behave, the reality is that they try following you as an example. In this regard, show your outright rejection of drugs and drug abuse through your behaviour and actions, and your children are bound to follow you.
Deal with stressful situations in a positive manner and try developing an optimistic environment in your house. In this regard, if you ever commit a mistake, make sure that you admit and apologize for it, especially if your children witnessed or were directly affected by your action.
Secondly, you should communicate more openly with your children about all kinds of topics and show interest in their lifestyle. Ask them questions abou