When and How to Talk to Kids About Drugs

 By Jenna Samelson Browning

Just Say What?

Blue Nikes. Mercedes Benz. Black Panthers. Do these terms mean anything to you beyond designer athletic shoes, luxury cars and ’60s counterculture? They may to your kids. They’re types of the drug ecstasy – pills cut and stamped in ways that are alluring to youth – and such street drugs can be easier for kids to obtain than alcohol or tobacco.

Parents and kids often don’t speak the same language, especially when it comes to illegal substance use. But parents do have the strongest voice when the time comes for a child or teen to say yes or no.

“The severe problem of substance abuse in this country will not be solved in courtrooms or government chambers – but in living rooms and across kitchen tables,” says Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman and founder of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at New York’s Columbia University. Califano launched the nation’s anti-smoking campaign as U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Carter.

His new book, How to Raise a Drug-Free Kid: The Straight Dope for Parents (Fireside, 2009), promotes “Parent Power” – the all-important influence that parents have over kids, for better or worse. Although the book focuses on the “dangerous decade” of ages 10 to 21, Califano believes parental messages begin on day one.

“If Dad comes home and throws down three martinis after work, by the time that baby is 3 years old, he or she has learned that’s how you relax,” Califano explains, pointing to the link between such role modeling and the child’s propensity to binge drink in high school.

So how and when should an actual conversation about substance abuse begin? A preschooler might ask, “Mommy, what are you drinking? Why?”