The Partnership for a Drug-free America
December 2007 – Decoder - Breaking down teen culture, substance abuse, and parenting

The Mitchell Report

Dec 19, 2007 by James Ponti | Categories Advice, Celebrities, Drugs, Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Sports

The Mitchell Report, which examines the use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs in major league baseball, is different things for different people.  For columnists and talk radio hosts, it has provided fodder for debates and questions about who did what and when.  For young athletes hopefully it has been a warning of the dangers of such drugs.  But for parents, it has presented an inspiration. 

Forget the names.  Forget questioning the thoroughness.  Forget the ugliness involved.  The Mitchell report has done one very significant thing.  It has taken something that most fans suspected - that drugs are a problem in baseball - and it has turned that suspicion into a conversation.  No matter how uncomfortable it is, the communication is necessary to move in the right direction.

Likewise, there are many families in which despite the veneer of normalcy, there is the underlining suspicion of a problem - whether that problem is drugs or alcohol or something else.  And like baseball, that problem needs to be discussed.  The good thing is that you don’t need hire a senator and a team of investigators.  You just need to face the problem and commit to making it better. 

  • Posted by: James Ponti | 2 Comment(s)
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Guitar Zero

Dec 17, 2007 by Sarit Catz | Categories Drugs, Education, Marijuana, Pop Culture

Did you guys see this story out of Montreal?—

Dad sells son’s 90-dollar video game online for more than $9,000After catching his 15-year-old smoking pot, a father sold the hard-to-get “Guitar Hero III” video game he bought his son for 90 dollars for Christmas at an online auction, fetching 9,000 dollars.

The sale took place after the father spent two weeks searching for the video game for the Nintendo Wii gameboard.

“So I was so relieved in that I had finally got the Holy Grail of Christmas presents pretty much just in the nick of time. I couldn’t wait to spread the jubilance to my son,” the father wrote on the eBay website.

“Then, yesterday, I came home from work early and what do I find? My innocent little boy smoking pot in the back yard with two of his delinquent friends.”

The man, a school teacher, who kept his identity private, said he sold the coveted video game to punish his son and discourage him from smoking dope.

On the plus side, if his daughter pierces her tongue, the guy could pay off his mortgage!

But in all seriousness, do you think this will work? Shouldn’t he have suspected something if his “innocent little boy” had “delinquent friends?” It’s a huge challenge, isn’t it?

  • Posted by: Sarit Catz | 4 Comment(s)
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Caught in the Web

Dec 10, 2007 by Sarit Catz | Categories Education, Elementary School, General, Internet, Pop Culture

Last week, my fifth grade daughter, Freckles, got a homework assignment to research proteins on the internet and write a couple of paragraphs about them.  It was due the next day.

This doesn’t seem like a big deal, right?  Well, here’s my problem with it…. (I seem to have problems with a lot of things, don’t I?)

I don’t let my kids on the internet without me and I had a boatload of my own work I had to do including going into NYC to teach a night class.  This homework assignment falls into the category I call “family homework.”  And I don’t think it’s fair to give me only one night to help her with it.

Freckles has a computer in her room but it’s not hooked up to the internet because I don’t want psychos chatting with my kids.  I don’t want my kids chatting with psychos.  In fact, I don’t want my kids chatting with anyone.

One time, a bunch of years ago, I went into an AOL chat room and about two seconds later I started getting all kinds of disgusting e-mails, messages, pictures and links.  Now, the technology may have changed since then and there may be all kinds of filters and firewalls and protections in place.  But there may also be ways these wackos have found to get around them.  I’d bet on it.

Also, who knows what the kids will google.  The internet is a big scary place filled with all kinds of inappropriate and fantastic stuff.  I think kids need guidance to navigate that mix.  I don’t know how old I’ll want my kids to be before I let them go on the internet by themselves.  But I’m pretty sure 10 is too young.

Am I out of line?

  • Posted by: Sarit Catz | 6 Comment(s)
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Helicopter Parenting

Dec 1, 2007 by Joe Keenan | Categories General

An interesting post from New York Times blogger Judith Warner about “helicopter” parenting going very bad. It’s worth checking out the comments to her post — they offer a wide range of perspectives on the issue.

  • Posted by: Joe Keenan | 0 Comment(s)
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