By Sunday Citizen reporter 

Many years ago, when I was still an intern in the paediatrics department, an adolescent patient asked me if I had ever smoked bhang. It wasn’t a question I expected, so I fumbled on an appropriate response. No patient had ever asked me that. 

 

However, in the recent past, I have found myself being asked this question all too often.

Now more than ever, doctors and parents whom teenagers look up to for advice, need a way to integrate their standards of honesty with what we know about preventing substance abuse.

 

Scientists have come to understand much more about the working of the teenage brain and the risks of experimenting with drugs and alcohol during adolescence. While it was previously thought that the brain was relatively mature by 16 or 18, new facts have revealed it is still developing into the mid-20s.

Research has shown that what does develop early is the pleasure-seeking area. The regions that help with abstract thinking, decision-making and judgment are still maturing, and therefore are less likely to inhibit the pleasure-seeking behaviour. In effect, drugs and alcohol can actually lead to permanent changes in the way the brain works. A greater likelihood of addiction in adulthood is then probable if substance abuse begins early in life.

When they question you

But giving sage advice to the young has never been a simple task, and when a parent’s own history is brought up, it gets even more complicated.

It is here that a moral question for grown-ups who pride themselves on honesty and openness lies. There’s always the fear that no matter how carefully you spell out the lesson of your own story, you may be offering your child an implicit lesson about the lack of consequences. 

Many parents are also anxious about losing the moral high ground. This fear is driven further by the knowledge that someday this will be thrown back in your face. That can be especially troubling when children or parents (or both) are dealing with drug and alcohol problems.

Research suggests that when parents provide more information and better modeling early on, their children’s risk of substance abuse goes down. In a 2009 study by the Hazelden addiction treatment center in Minnesota, evidence was found that indicated many teenagers believed parental honesty about alcohol use was a positive influence.

 

Of course, every parent, every child and every situation is different, and there is no fixed rule that says parents and doctors need to offer any particular information about their drug or alcohol use, past or present. It is however crucial that you inquire why a child would want to know.

 

In fact, a child who asks a parent this question may be worrying over how and when to bring it up. Don’t assume that the agonizing and the self-consciousness are all on your conflicted, guilty parental side. Instead, treat the question with respect, and use it, to keep the conversation going. It may not be a question you particularly want to be asked, but it’s a larger conversation that as parents, we need to encourage. 

 

You don’t need to tell everything. But if you decide to answer, don’t lie. “Tell them without glorifying it, and if you think you made a mistake, tell them that too.” Says, Dr. Sharon Levy of Children’s Hospital Boston. 

The angry adolescent

 

What about that familiar parental nightmare, the angry adolescent who reacts to discipline or reproof by turning it around on you with an accusation about your own transgressions? Deborah R. Simkin, a psychiatrist alleges that this is akin to an alcoholic’s reaction.“The child is trying to divert the attention from an appropriate intervention by a parent.” In such cases, the parent’s response should be clear: “We’re not going to discuss what I did, we’re going to discuss what you did.”

 

 “If the way it’s presented is, ‘This is risky, and I hope that you don’t have to touch fire to find out you get burned,’ they don’t have to take the same chance.”

 

Finally, after all the cautions and the anxieties, it’s essential to come back to the positives.  Always remember to notice the good about your child. The most important message a parent can give is not about the mistakes that can derail a child, but about the joys of finding your way.