ALL PARENTS
All parents, all of us are worried about our children and drugs. As our children grow into teenagers, it's impossible to be with them all time to see what they're up to the way you could when they were toddlers. You hope you've brought them up to be responsible but every day there seems to be another report in the papers about a drug death or new drug crazes, about drug addiction or accidents involving drugs. We al know that these are somebody's children.
The Health Education Board for Scotland (HEBS) realises that the fears of parents are understandable and that there is often a gulf in knowledge about drugs between parents and their children. This makes communication- tricky at the best of times with teenagers-even more difficult.
Here are the most common concerns parents mentioned:
1. The pressure our children get from their pals to be 'one of the crowd' which might lead them to experiment with drugs even if they're unhappy about doing it. No teenager wants to feel left out, or as if they're a 'goody goody'.
2. Parents often feel ignorant about the drug scene which seems to have its own language, its own rules and codes of behaviour. We don't even understand what half the substances are and don't remember them being around when we were the same age.
3. Children might take a drug and not even realise what, exactly, they're taking. Somebody might tell them at a party that it's OK.
4. Not being sure of the signs to look for which would tell us that our children might be experimenting with drugs is often a problem. We don't really understand the effects or how to spot them.
5. Parents are afraid that if they try to tackle the drugs issue with their children they might refuse to discuss it, or take it the wrong way, or become annoyed or suspicious and that this could maybe damage the overall relationship we have with them.