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Who Can Help With Substance Abuse(& Suggestions for Prevention)
You Can Help Your Children: Get Them Involved: Get your children involved in activities that don't accommodate substance abuse. For suggestions, go to:
Show 'em that you love 'em: Tell and show your children - even while still toddlers - that they are beautiful and capable people who mean the world to you, whose company you enjoy and whose opinion you value. We believe -- and research confirms -- that such ongoing affirmation of their self-worth, and attention to their needs, will go a long way toward preventing dangerous, self-abusive, or violent problems as teen-agers. Children respond when their parents take time -- Some parents believe that "kids will be kids," regardless of what parents do or say. But research, including a report from the National Institutes of Health, consistently shows that children with parents who stayed involved in their children's lives -- talking with them, attending their activities, listening to their problems -- were less likely to engage in harmful activities like drinking, drugs and smoking. Give Your Child A Way to Say NO -- Many times, children really do want to say no, but just don't know how. So make a deal with your child: If your child is out with friends and is feeling pressured to do something, he can ask you if he "absolutely has to come home." Those words will be a signal to you that he needs you to be the bad guy and demand that he comes home right now. But if he's just having fun and wants to stay out, he can ask you if he "can stay out longer." Those words will alert you that everything's OK. Also, help your children be prepared to respond to peer pressure by role-playing with them. Offer them tough issues and situations (in their lives and yours), and help them work through various options. This will give them the ideas and the experience they need when it comes time to make a difficult choice. Be wary of teaching your child to not "rat" on a friend -- "Ratting" might be the best thing your child can do for a friend. It might also someday save your child's life. You want your child to eventually become self-sufficient, yet always know that if there's a problem bigger than he or she, help is available. And as a caring parent, you definitely want your child to know that you care enough to hear what's going on. Teach your children that you will always love them and accept them -- no matter what -- and that you will work out a solution together. Also teach your children that when they're weighing whether to break a friend's confidence, good questions to ask themselves are these: Will someone be killed, physically abused, sexually abused or otherwise injured if I don't report this information? Does keeping this secret allow someone to engage in self-destructive or illegal behavior? Am I keeping a secret about behavior that seems to me to be wrong, hurtful, unethical or dangerous? Does it haunt me to keep this secret? If I keep this secret, will I wonder later if I could have prevented a tragedy? Am I keeping a secret about behavior that's harmful to me? Answering "yes" to any of these questions is a signal to your children that breaking the confidence probably is the right thing to do.
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