If you are a teacher, coach or counselor – or you know someone who is – please take or forward this short survey. With questions about social/health issues in schools across the US, it should take you no more than 10 minutes to complete and your responses will be kept strictly confidential. Thank you for your help!

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Parents! In case you didn’t see our July Parent E-mail, here it is. If you’d like to receive tips, tools and guidance for raising your tween, teen or young adult, please sign up for our monthly parent e-mail.

Hello Fellow Parents & Caregivers,

I’m Lisa Frederiksen, researcher, writer, speaker and consultant — and proud mom of two young adults.

Today, let’s talk about sex. You might not want to think so, but sex, drugs and alcohol are linked in several ways for today’s teenagers.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, among 15-17 year olds, 51% say that they are personally concerned that they might “do more” sexually than they planned to because they were drinking or using drugs.

Teen sex, drugs and alcohol are often connected because developmentally, teens are at a time in their lives when they take risks. How are they linked?

* Teens drink or take drugs to feel less nervous about sex.

* Teens may engage in risky sexual behaviors while high or drunk — exposing them to risk of pregnancy or sexually-transmitted diseases.

When teens use drugs or drink alcohol their thought process is affected so it’s difficult for them to think straight and make healthy, smart decisions. I have heard many stories first-hand while researching my books where a young person’s life has been completely undone by unwanted, unplanned and/or unprotected sexual encounters — often involving drugs and alcohol.

What Parents Can Do

It’s normal to feel uneasy about talking to your teen about sex, drugs and alcohol. (I know I certainly did.) Here are 10 tips that may help you:

1. Talk early and talk often about sex. “Teens are thinking about sex from early adolescence and they’re very nervous about it,” explains Elizabeth Schroeder, EdD, MSW, Executive Director, Answer, a national sexuality education organization based at Rutgers University. “They get a lot of misinformation about sex and what it’s supposed to be like. And as a result they think that if they take drugs, if they drink, that’s going to make them feel less nervous.”

Take this quiz to sharpen your talking skills.

2. Take a moment. What if your teen asks a question that shocks you? Dr. Schroeder suggests saying, “‘You know, that’s a great question.’ or ‘I gotta tell you, I’m not sure if you’re being serious right now but I need a minute.’” Then regain your composure and return to the conversation.

Learn how to handle personal questions from your teen like: “How old were you when you first had sex?” and “Have you ever used drugs?”

3. Be the source of accurate information. Beyond many school health classes, teens have lots of questions about drugs, pregnancy, condoms, abstinence and oral sex.

Find out what one mom discovered when she sat in on her daughter’s sex ed class.

4. Explain the consequences. Since teen brains aren’t wired yet for consequential thinking and impulse control, it’s important to have frank discussions with your teens about the ramifications of unprotected sex and the importance of using condoms to prevent the spread of STDs, HIV and unwanted pregnancy. (Approximately one in four sexually active teens contracts an STD every year.)

Find out how to guide your child toward healthy risks instead of dangerous ones.

*** Read all 10 Tips for talking with your teen about sex, drugs and alcohol. ***

So, the the main message is when it comes to sex, drugs and drinking? Start talking, keep talking and talk some more. You want to reinforce healthy messages and values and help your teens develop the skills that they need to avoid unhealthy and unsafe situations. And more importantly, you want to be the one they come to for answers.

Good luck!

Lisa Frederiksen

Mother of 2 daughters, ages 24 & 22

Researcher, writer, speaker, consultant

Decoder blogger for The Partnership at Drugfree.org

P.S. I’d like to share with you an exclusive offer for new and existing Time To Get Help community members.  Join this month and receive 15% off your next Target order (online)! One lucky mom or dad also has a chance to win a $500 gift basket from Target! Click here to learn more.

Parents! In case you didn’t see our July Parent E-mail, here it is. If you’d like to receive tips, tools and guidance for raising your tween, teen or young adult, please sign up for our monthly parent e-mail.

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“Summertime and the living is easy…” 

Well, not when you have teens and especially not if you work outside the home.

The transition from school to summertime provides new opportunities for teens — and it can be challenging for some adolescents to cope with the change.  Studies show that teens who haven’t tried drugs or alcohol are more likely to start during times of transition in order to deal with stress.  But don’t worry — while change is a part of life, risky behavior, like drug and alcohol use, doesn’t have to be. 

You can’t control the changes that impact your teen, but you can pay attention to her feelings, concerns and needs.  Conversations are one of the most powerful tools parents can use to connect with  — and protect — their children.     Here are seven ways parents can help deter their teen from engaging in risky behaviors during the free time they’ll have this summer:

1.      Work Up a List of What They Can Do Without Asking Permission

As a mom, I know that it can be frustrating for teens when they’re not being able to reach a parent at work in order to ask permission to go to a friend’s house, the movies or the beach. It can be equally frustrating for the parent whose employer frowns on personal phone, text or email interruptions. To address this conflict, sit down with your teen to talk about the kinds of activities they may do without your explicit permission. The condition is they leave a note or send you a text that tells you where/what they are doing, with whom, the time of departure and their estimated time of return.  

2.      Install Computer Controls

With some 200 million websites worldwide, Facebook, YouTube, and any number of other internet enticements, telling your teen that you are adding controls and a history tracker to your computer can help. This allows you to check (and them to know you are checking) where they are and have been online.  

3.      Know What’s in the Cabinet

It’s important to track the alcohol you have in the house - whether that’s in the fridge, liquor cabinet, garage, hall cupboard or wine cellar. Not necessarily because you are concerned your teen will consume alcohol (or collect quantities from various liquor bottles to fill their 12 ounce water bottle) but to help him or her avoid peer pressure to do so. The same is true of the medicine cabinet, your purse or the bathroom drawer.  Also, with one in five teenagers abusing pain medication, it’s important for parents to monitor and secure all prescription bottles and pill packets in the house.  As well as dispose of all expired medications to decrease the opportunity for your teen or their friends to abuse your medications. 

4.      Establish That Periodically Throughout the Day You Must “TALK”

Not text, but talk. This was one of my daughter’s suggestions. A parent can tell when there is a change in their child’s voice, which likely will not come through in a text, and that voice change can be a signal that something is amiss.  My daughter explained that knowing that a phone call was expected of her made her think about her actions and the consequences more often. 

5.      Take the Spare Car Keys to Work (or track the mileage)

Just like the computer controls, knowing that you are tracking the mileage (or taking the spare keys to work) removes the temptation to “borrow” the family car.

6.      Know Who Your Teen’s Summer Friends Are

Friendships can change once school is out. Some friends may go off to camp or at a summer job, while new kids are suddenly available to hang out. Knowing who your teen’s current friends are will give you the opportunity to talk to those friends’ parents in order to coordinate oversight while you’re both at work.

7.      Follow-up on Statements That Don’t Ring True

“It’s not mine. I’m just keeping it for a friend.” Never believe these kinds of statements outright. Talk to that friend’s parents. A friend that asks your teen to hold drugs or alcohol for them is not a friend to have because obviously that teen knows it’s wrong, or they would hold it at their own house.  Trust your instincts — chances are if you suspect your child is using drugs then she probably is or something else is going on. 

Some of these suggestions may feel like you’re sending the message that you don’t trust your teen. But, in actuality, by reducing the opportunities for your teens to lie or go along with the crowd during adolescence, we strengthen trust all around.

What do you plan on doing to keep your teen safe this summer?

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Stunned.

Worried.

Guilt.  

These were just a few of the emotions I felt when I got the call telling me I needed to pick up my daughter from school. She’d been caught drinking at the school dance.

Up until that moment, I always thought of my daughter as the poster child of a “good kid” - AP classes, varsity sports, excellent grades, volunteering, lots of friends. She had not exhibited the signs of a teen abusing alcohol (which I later learned she’d been doing for several months), and the changes I did observe, I chalked up to her being a teenager.

That wasn’t the case though.  I was wracked with worry about what this meant for her.  I also felt guilty for not knowing that she was drinking alcohol in the first place.  I kept asking myself, “How could I have missed it?!”

Finding the answers consumed me. I researched online, read books, consulted with experts, family and friends.  And what I found in my research can be summed up in one short phrase:  parcel your trust.

This is can feel counter-intuitive and wrong, I know, but there are scientific reasons for doing so — specifically, brain development that occurs from ages 13 - 25. The portions of the brain that drive risk-taking and impulsiveness develop before those that allow for cause-and-effect-type reasoning skills (the brakes). This developmental sequencing represents an important, hardwired function in the human species - namely that which creates the impetus to get out, explore, seek and find. Unfortunately, it is this developmental sequencing that is very tough to parent.

So it becomes our job, then, to parcel out our trust by helping to structure their lives so they have boundaries yet still have some freedom to explore.  As parents we should help our child grow until eventually we let our teen take full control of his or her own life. 

These are five things that I did with my daughter after I found out about her drinking:

1.      Stop the sleepovers. I found out that this is often when substance use occurs — AFTER the hosting parents go to sleep.

2.      Set your alarm, get up and be reading a book, in the living room, before curfew rolls around. If teens cannot get away with calling out, “I’m home,” as they pass your bedroom door, they have an excuse to give their friends as to why they are not going to partake. “My mom/dad is a stalker — always up, grilling me when I get home.”

3.      Use the science about brain development and risk factors  as an entrée to early conversations that will establish you as the expert and nudge their restraint thinking when problematic situations arise. Check out A Parent’s Guide to the Teen Brain and Why Do Some People Become Addicted?

4.      Avoid providing the opportunity to lie. Instead of asking, “Have you been drinking?” state your observation, “I smell alcohol on your breath. We’ll talk about this in the morning.” And, in the morning, stay calm, and say something like, “Please explain how you came to have alcohol on your breath last night.” 

5.      Find the time. Sometimes the teen years seem to be all about rules, curfews, homework, being grounded. Try to set aside time (it could be an errand or getting ice cream at 9:30 p.m.) where you’re together with no lecture, no criticism - even if it’s just a comfortable silence.

Have you ever caught your teen drinking alcohol?  What did you do?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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What really happens on prom night?  We turned to 11 teens and young adults to find out the truth.  We discovered that prom itself isn’t as wild and crazy as the movies have made it out to be.  But you might be surprised by the some of the risky behavior going on after the prom.

You shouldn’t be so worried about the prom itself — unless you mind juking [editor’s note: juking, as defined by Urban Dictionary, is where two or more dancers rub their bodies against each other] or grinding. The proms are chaperoned. But you might want to worry about the after party. At ours, we all drank and smoked…But it all depends on the group your child will be with, the kind of school, and the curfew. —Oscar

We had some beer, but I didn’t drink because I didn’t like the taste. —Kim

My senior prom, my best friend and I went together since neither one of us had dates.  We met a group of people for dinner and then after the dance we went to the diner for pancakes. —Jessica

Many of us pooled our money for a hotel room where we would be hanging out afterwards. This is where the real party started. There was alcohol, beer, and wine everywhere. I’m not sure how it got there, but I remember seeing a drink in everybody’s hand. If you were anybody, you had to drink. I didn’t want to, but I also didn’t want to be the odd girl out. — Vi
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