What if a teen tells you,he or she is using?

What do you do if a teen tells you he or she is using drugs?

I was in a western city in the Rocky Mountains. A wonderful organization, the Callister Foundation, had funded the WHEEL Council to deliver our flag ship substance abuse curriculum. the Storytelling PowerBook. We had trained a number of teachers in a middle school to use the book, and I was making a follow up visit to see how the implementation was going. I came into a teacher’s class, she was very pretty with blond hair and tailored clothes. Her class had a nice hum, with students finishing work and the students who were diverse racially and ethnically working well together. She didn’t have time to meet with me, and called me aside. I asked her how the implementation was going. She said that she liked the books a lot, but she had to stop using them. I asked why. It turned out when she started the activity in Skill Power which defined different drugs like marijuana, methamphetamines, alcohol, and inhalants, one of her students said he had snorted inhalants. She had decided to stop the activities in the book, since she didn’t know what to do. I was a guest at the school and didn’t feel I could say anything. But I was thinking that this is a situation where the kids need to do the activities in this book, not only about the drugs and their physical effects, but how to make decisions, how to find inner strength and role models and how to set goals for the future.
This incident made me wonder if this was a common occurrence, that people don’t know what to do if a teen reported using drugs. It is difficult to talk about sensitive topics with teens, and also teachers may feel that they are going into dicey territory of possible illegal actions by their students or potential problems with parents who don’t want teachers to talk to kids about drugs. But, if teens tell an adult they are using, that certainly is an opening to say something. How does one go about this? It depends on who you are and the relationship to the teen be it teacher, peer, parent or family friend.
There is couple of things to keep in mind. For example, judgment can shut someone down, but simultaneously one needs to deal with the seriousness of the situation. Maybe a lesson from how psychologists deal with suicide threats gives some advice. The first thing to assess is if the behavior is possibly life threatening. With suicide threats the question to ask is, “Do you have a plan?” This will tell if it is a serious threat. For the inhalant use situation, the question could be, “When did you use? Where are you using? Who are using with? How often are you using?” Not so many questions at once, but maybe one to get the teen talking. tthis will be a good way to find out what is actually if the teen is experimenting or abusing.

It is also important to use the old communication technique of “I statements.” It is a little obvious, but sometimes it works to not judge another person about how they are or what you think of them, but instead say what you think, believe and care about. For example, “I care about you and don’t want you to hurt yourself. I don’t want you to use. Is there anything I can do to help, get you someone to talk to, give you more information about this drug.” You may want to give information on legal and physical consequences. The main thing to try to figure out is what is the teen trying to tell you and asking for.
Another issue is the legal one. Is the teen reporting something illegal to you that you need to report. This would be a judgment call on your part, unless you would have first hand information of something like seeing the possession of an illicit drug. Certainly if you were a parent, you would need to make an assessment as to whether an intervention is necessary. If you are a peer, you may want to decide, after you tell your friend your “I statements”, “I care about you, I don’t want you to use.”, is whether or not you want to break contact. “I don’t want to be around this.”
Just some ideas, what do you think? Have you had an experience like this, what did you do?

Why teens abuse & what can parents and teachers do?

What contributes to children and teens abusing drugs?
Parents have been pulling their hair out for years wondering, “ Why is my child is abusing drugs. I’m a good parent, they’re good kids, what’s wrong?” Some parents have teens who are addicted, and have tried to get them into treatment over and over, and sometimes tragedy strike, and a teen dies in a car accident. Drugs today have also become more virulent, with the meth epidemic. Meth is cheap, can be addictive for some in one or two uses, highly addictive and difficult to treat without an in- patient stay. Parents need help.
Psychologists have found some things that could contribute to substance abuse. No longer is the parent blamed as happened in the psychoanalytic 1950’s when everything was the mother’s fault. Certainly there is a lot of individuality in responding to genetic predispositions and environmental factors. But one key factor appears to be a child’s temperament, what psychologists call ego under control. These children don’t seem to be able to control their impulses and are all over the place. Another factor appears to be the lack of adult role models who a child looks up to, these adults don’t need to be parents, but can be an uncle or a family friend. One group of psychologists focuses on risk factors like hanging out with peers who use. Still others point out that distant parent-child relationships can contribute to abuse. This can be no fault of the parents, for example, if parents are poor and need to work two shifts, there isn’t time
What can be done by parents?
Communicate, Communicate, And Communicate. Teens don’t like to talk to their parents or sometimes they don’t want to spend time with them. Teens are “individuating” figuring out how to be a person outside of being someone’s child. It is natural but sometimes the teens push it a bit far. But there are creative ways of spending time with your children that can keep communication open. Have you noticed that when you are driving at nights, just you and your children, and you are both looking ahead, sometimes your children will start talking? Have you noticed when you go out for ice cream or coffee and you are both sitting at a ledge looking at the window, your teen might ask you a question about dating? Find an activity that you both enjoy that is not high pressure, and doesn’t have the expectation of communicating. Just sit with him and her and let things happen.
Communication about teen’s activities is also important. Keep the expectation that you need to know where they are during what hours. Get phone numbers and addresses. Teens will resist this, but they need to know you care where they are, and it can also give the teens an excuse to get themselves out of difficult situations.
Express your values clearly. There is some research that teens will act like they don’t care what parents think and rebel, but in the later teen years they will return to these values. So say what you think, for example, “I think it is really bad for a person to experiment with meth or heroin, since it can be addictive immediately.” This is a little academic, I know, but say what you think and value, never use “you should”.
If you notice your son or daughter has an impulse control problem, get him or her in martial arts, yoga, dance or sports. This type of eye-hand discipline helps overcome some impulses.
What can be done by teachers?
There is a lot of research that the “fear” approach doesn’t work. Remember that ad, this is your brain on drugs? Well it didn’t do much. Teens feel invincible and also they find out they can experiment and nothing bad happens. Teens need solid knowledge about health risks and also the definition of addiction. When you are addicted to something, you can’t say no when you are in its presence, you can never go back. We have found that many teens don’t understand addiction. And what is even more important is for teens to learn how to make decisions and deal with peer pressure. All of the WHEEL Council’s material in our catalog, have the strategy SODAS-stop, options, decide, act and self praise. We have scenes and role plays. Many of our teens have said they didn’t know they could refuse drugs when a friend offered and are relieved to learn ways of getting out of a weird scene. Another thing to do is to get your students in small groups and start them talking about the drugs around them and how they feel about them, and what they want to do about it when they are around it. The reason for this, is that if teens perceive their friends aren’t using they will be more apt not. Also some teens are deeply troubled when their friends start using and need some peer advice about how to help or how to stay out of a scene.