• Vaping has become more common among kids this age (more than one in four Oklahoma teens report vaping), but that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Instead of reducing stress and anxiety, self-medicating through vaping worsens mental health and has long-term effects on brain development. • Listen instead of lecturing and use open-ended questions to get the conversation started. Make it clear that you disapprove of all alcohol, vaping, nicotine and drug use. • Show interest in and discuss your child’s daily ups and downs. You’ll earn their trust and learn how to talk to each other. • Encourage healthy risk-taking. Teenagers take risks to find out who they are. By guiding your teen toward healthy challenges, you can help them satisfy a desire for excitement, avoid negative • Keep communication open with your child as they leave home. They need to know they can turn to you for help should problems arise. • Stay alert to possible mental health issues. A strong link exists between mental and physical health issues (including stress and anxiety) and substance use. If your child is in college, make sure you both know what campus mental health resources are available. Find more resources for talking with your child about substance use at metrofamilymagazine.com/how-to-talk-with-kids-about- substance-use and access additional crucial parenting resources at familyfieldguide.org . consequences and bolster their confidence. Young Adults (19-25 years old)
• Keep your discussions about substances focused on the present — long-term consequences are too distant to have meaning to most children of this age. • Discuss the differences between the medicinal uses and illegal uses of drugs and how taking prescription medicine the wrong way can be dangerous. • Get to know your child’s friends and their parents. Preteen (9-12 years old) • Preteens give their friends’ opinions a great deal of power and are starting to question their parents’ views and rules, all of which is normal. • Remind them you don’t allow any substance use because it’s detrimental to their health and their brains. Let them know you will enforce the rules. • Tell them if they’re ever offered pills or other substances, they can always use you as an excuse to get out of a bad situation. Encourage them to say, “My parents would ground me forever if I did that” or “My parents can always tell if I’m lying.” • This is the age it’s especially crucial to make yourself available to talk and listen. Teenagers (13-18 years old) • Teens are incredibly knowledgeable about addictive substances and need information based on reality.
ARCADIA LAKE STORYBOOK FOREST
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METROFAMILYMAGAZINE.COM / SEPT-OCT 2022 15
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