Tips for Parents about Positive Youth Development and Substance Abuse Prevention
- Know your children’s friends. There is much wisdom in the old expression “birds of feather flock together.”
- Teach your kids to think critically and to be independent. Teach them about values. Teach them that character matters. Teach them the golden rule: “do unto others as you have them to do unto you.” These are important things to teach because we know that kids and young people in general will do things in groups that they would not do individually. This was the lesson of William Golding’s Lord of The Flies in which a gang of civilized English school boys ultimately kill one of their own.
- Have an open door policy when it comes to your kids. Be available to them. Listen to them. Try not to be too judgmental and resist lecturing. Remember it’s not what you say that matters so much its what they hear that counts.
- Create a set of enduring family traditions with your kids. Have family meals two or three times week; meals where everyone is sitting at the same table and televisions, computers, and cell phones are turned off. This builds communication and trust.
- Be consistent. Remember often your actions speak louder than words. You, the parent, are a role model for your kids. They need you. Adolescents will not tell their parents how important they are to them but studies of adolescent attitudes tell a different story. They stress that parents are a more important influence than peer groups.
- Don’t be afraid to set limits on your children’s acting out behavior. Kids need and often want limits set. They rely on their parents to set the boundaries and define what constitutes appropriate behavior. It’s far more important to your child’s growth and development that you be the parent not the friend.
- Don’t be afraid to talk about alcohol and drugs. You can tell them about your fears for them using dangerous drugs. Drugs do kill. More important to kids they maim. We all know that kids don’t fear death; they think that they’re immortal. Research indicates that adolescents react far more strongly to pictures of kids confined to wheelchairs as a result of car crashes.
- Children crave attention and recognition from you. Give it to them in ways that really matter. Ask them to write a statement of the values and ideas that they believe in. Discuss this statement or personal credo with them. Show them that you take their ideas seriously.
- It’s important to create adolescents that can think for themselves rather than being subject to the whims and desires of a peer group. We know that kids get in trouble when they’re unable to resist negative peer pressure.
- You can help your children and deepen the quality of your relationship with them by engaging them in discussions about philosophical issues. Encourage them to develop a personal credo.
- Discuss things with them like the ancient Greek credo “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Encourage them to speculate about what they think the Greeks had in mind when they wrote this.
- Ask your older children to explore with you what Reinhold Niebuhr had in mind when he wrote these words
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“Give us serenity to accept what cannot be changed, courage to change what should be changed, and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other”
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Challenge them to try to apply it to their lives.
- A final tip is in order. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable.
It’s OK to show your kids that you’re human. You can engage your children in what it means to you to struggle with the philosophical type questions we’ve suggested. They are open ended questions with no neat, ready made, answers. They are designed to get your child—particularly your adolescent—to slow down and become reflective.
Reflection fosters maturity and character. Don’t be afraid to revisit these questions periodically with them. Make the discussion of them a part of your on going communications with your children. Remember much good parenting and positive youth development centers on your ability to craft a set of “teachable moments” (moments here you can really reach your kids—moments when they slow down and can really take new things in). The “philosophic “ type questions that we’ve suggested provide a framework for generating those teachable moments. The respectful discussion of them provides a strong foundation for deepening the quality of your relationship with your children.
Communication brings us closer to our children. One finding is particularly suggestive. Recent research on the frequency with which mothers discuss sensitive topics with their teenage daughters reveals that willingness to discuss sensitive topics increases the future closeness of the relationship by thirty six percent.