Children and alcoholism – no matter how many times it can be repeated it sounds just as awkward as the first time. This article offers tips to parents who've stumbled upon the inconvenient acknowledgment of their children having drug-or-alcohol-related problems.
Detecting the Problem and Applying Healthy Prevention Methods
An important thing to keep in mind is that minors and adults normally handle alcohol quite differently – an adult may be able to keep his thoughts straight for longer than a child could after the same intake of alcohol. Another important thing to pay attention to are the mood swings. If a child which is normally mild-tempered, all of a sudden – and for an extended period of time – starts throwing tantrums for no apparent reason, this may well be caused by things other than hormones rushing throughout his or her teenage body. It also may be a good time to start asking some questions....
A good thing to keep tabs on is the kid's circle of friends. This makes most sense when the kids get to junior high. At this point they will most likely be spending more time outdoors than at home, and they will be exposed to a variety of influences, some of which may well be drugs and alcohol abuse. Now, just to be on the safe side, this doesn't mean stalking the kids around town like an insane person would, but rather getting to meet all of their new friends – and their parents – instead. This kind of gesture is not only polite but also allows the parent to have at least the slightest bit of insight into the other children's interests an upbringing.
Some teenagers also tend to prefer the advice of friends, or worse still, "popular kids" at school to the advice of their own parents. This is why it is important to make sure that the teenager himself is not interested in taking drugs, much rather than if they are accessible to him via certain social circles – because, they surely will be.
Parents who have established good relationships with their children throughout their childhoods tend to have less problems of the sort during their teenage years. This is all due to the fact that teenagers feel urged to display a heightened level of independence, and in case they never established this sort of a connection with their parents previously, they may swing to extremes such as completely shutting them out of their lives during the teen years. To the contrary, a kid who has established such a connection tends to be more open and friendly towards his parents – even as a teen.
So accordingly, a good way at hinting that a teen may be having drugs or alcohol problems would be that he or she, all of a sudden – completely out of the blue – starts acting as if there's something to hide and starts, notably excluding the parents from his or her life.
In the end, whether they want to admit it or not, the teenagers look up in certain ways to their parents and thus, the best way of taking care of this kind of problem is presenting the kids with a good role-model.
Conclusively, a smart kid who got to grow up in an environment through which alcohol abuse is taken lightly, will, at a very early age, detect and understand the dangers it may bring.
Because the last call is – of course – always their own.
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