Dr. Dolores Malaspina, psychiatrist, NYU Langone Medical Center You need to be aware of change in your child:
- Decline in school
- New sets of friends
- Changes in the types of clothing they like to wear and the music they like to listen to can show more of an attachment to a type of a drug culture.
- Real shifting in their values and their willingness to talk to you
- Irritability that can be sometimes be extreme
- Early drug use can start with alcohol, which you can smell on your kid’s breath.
- Loss of motivation
- During the time kids are high they can be more paranoid
How to talk to your children about your prior drug use:
CALLER: "I have two daughters, 14 and 13, and they’re just starting to be exposed to this challenge. And I was wondering what I should say to my kids if they ask if I’ve ever smoked pot or was exposed to this kind of thing?"
DR. MALASPINA: "First of all, be honest with your children. Hopefully you’re having an ongoing dialogue before these ages so you’ve established a comfort in communication. Find out what are your kids actually doing, what’s important to them, what’s happening? And if they say to you, 'did you use drugs?' you say, 'Yes I did. I wish I’d known then what science has taught us in the meantime about the real risks and consequences.'"
Should you smoke pot with your kids at home?
"I think that that is such a problem. I’ve heard people say that very often, and it’s the wrong message. It’s absolutely the wrong message. There’s evidence out there that marijuana is one of the biggest [precursors] of later schizophrenia and psychosis, possibly more than other drugs. There are long-term risks to this and I discourage any parent from saying 'we’ll smoke together.'"
DR. CARISE, MD. Chief Clinical Officer, Phoenix House: Inventive ways children hide drug purchases from their parents.
"Ecstasy dealers will bill in ringtones or other things so that the parents will not know what it was that was purchased. The bill won’t come in saying ‘pharmacy.’ Others will also send you 5 or 8 or 10 pills, and you don’t have to pay them, but if you like the pills, you pay them, then they’ll send you 16 or 20, and if you pay for those they’ll send you more. It really is very much like a drug deal."
John Gilbride, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York Field Division: Tips for Parents.
- Talk is very important. Talk to your kids. Be involved with their lives. Yes, they’re going to push back but they want that [and] they need that structure. They want to know that someone cares about them. You need to be involved.
- If there are packages showing up at the house that you didn’t order [be aware] ... It’s your house — take a look at those packages.
- Make sure you know what your credit card is being used for. There are ways they could be charging [drugs to your credit card] and it’s charged as a ringtone for something that they ordered.
- Secure your medicine cabinet, the same way we do with a liquor cabinet. Make sure these abuse substances are secure.
- Talk to your kids early and often. Be involved in their lives. Parenting is hard. They’re going to push back without a doubt, but you need to stay the course. You love them, you don’t want them to get hurt — so you need to stick with it.
All tips and comments were originally broadcast on the special, Doctor Radio Reports: Is Your Kid High?
Friday, January 22, 2010.
