How to Encourage your Preteen to Avoid Drugs

Teaching your preteen to avoid drugs starts with straightforward discussion about drugs. The National Drug Council recommends the following age-specific guidelines for talking about drugs.
Fourth to Sixth Grade

Instructions

• STEP 1: Explain that drugs are especially dangerous for growing bodies.
• STEP 2: Discuss the immediate effects of alcohol, tobacco and drugs on different parts of the body: tobacco makes you lightheaded, alcohol weakens your coordination.
• STEP 3: Point out the long-term consequences of drug use, including drug addiction.
• STEP 4: Talk about how alcohol and drugs hurt not only the user but also the user’s family and friends.
• STEP 5: Brainstorm potential scenarios in which friends offer your child drugs, and rehearse possible responses or excuses.
• STEP 6: Warn your child about how drugs and alcohol are promoted in advertisements, movies, television shows and music.
• STEP 7: Get to know your children’s friends and their interests, as well as their parents.
• STEP 8: Work with other parents to reinforce one another’s efforts to keep your children drug free.

Seventh to Ninth Grade

Instructions

• STEP 1: Point out the immediate, displeasing consequences of tobacco and marijuana use, such as bad breath and stained teeth.
• STEP 2: Begin to help your preteen distinguish drug myths from realities, i.e.: “Marijuana isn’t harmful because it comes from a plant and is ‘all natural.
• STEP 3: Explain, in this instance, for example, that marijuana smoke can contain higher concentrations of the same cancer-causing chemicals as tobacco.
• STEP 4: Remind your preteen of the health risks associated with smoking, namely lung cancer and emphysema.
• STEP 4: Remind your preteen of the health risks associated with smoking, namely lung cancer and emphysema.
• STEP 5: Explain to your preteen of the risks of heavy drinking, such as car crashes and liver damage.
• STEP 6: Discuss other long-term effects of drugs and alcohol, such as a loss of social and emotional skills, as well addiction, brain coma and death.

For further information contact:
National Drug Council (345) 949-9000