This post is part of our “Big Talks” series—a guide to helping parents navigate the most important conversations they’ll have with their kids. Read more here.
As parents, we often aren’t ready to think about substance use when our kids are young. When I mentioned to author and educator Jessica Lahey that I hadn’t said much to my kids about drugs, since the oldest is only 13, she pointed out that in a state where she’d just given a talk—Tennessee—the average ages of first use of alcohol and prescription drug misuse were 13.7 and 13.5 years, respectively. (Nationwide, the average is in the mid-teens.) Our kids are ready to have these talks long before we are.
Lahey is the author of The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence, and she argues that we should be having conversations that relate to substance use early and often. That includes alcohol, tobacco, and prescription medications in addition to the other substances we think of when we hear the word “drugs.”
But those talks might not be about drugs, at least at the start. By the time your child has the opportunity to smoke weed with a friend or it occurs to them that they could sneak sips from the family liquor cabinet, they’ll already have a foundation of ideas in their head that make those opportunities more or less tempting. They’ll have some understanding of how their bodies work, of what is and isn’t healthy to put into their bodies, and of the social consequences of saying yes or no to the things their friends are doing. And those ideas are ones you can begin talking about very young.
“Begin your long-term education in substance use and abuse with general talk about their health and safety,” Lahey writes in The Addiction Inoculation. “Then, as they mature, get into the specifics of substance use beginning with the substances they are most likely to encounter early,” which for many kids will be alcohol and nicotine. She adds: “The more you talk, the easier it gets.”
Ages 2-6
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With very young children, you’re laying foundations. Some of the most important things to help them understand are not about drugs, specifically, at all. Kids should feel comfortable asking questions and discussing problems, and you should listen instead of always lecturing. We talk about feelings during these ages, which is another important stage to set—how are you teaching your kids to manage their emotions?
Lahey adds that children should always have access to other adults they can trust, like relatives or teachers, if for any reason they want to talk to somebody who is not a parent.
At these ages, kids are beginning to learn about health and about how we take care of our bodies. At home and at school they should be learning about hand-washing, eating vegetables, and brushing their teeth—not just that they should do these things, but also why they make sense. Now is also a great time to talk about what we do and don’t put into our bodies, and why. In other words, that exasperated talk about why we don’t eat dirt, young lady is ultimately part of your kid’s drug-prevention education.
In the same way we talk about the bacteria that can lead to cavities, we can also talk about how medications and vitamins affect our bodies, and why we wouldn’t take somebody else’s medicine. Lahey suggests using the label on prescription bottles as reading practice. “Can you find Mommy’s name?” can start a conversation about how we use medications, as well as serving as a lesson about literacy in general—like sounding out words, or learning their address and their doctor’s name.
At these ages, we can also consider how we talk about substances. Children as young as 3 can recognize alcoholic beverages; they know there’s a difference between your beer and their milk. You can talk to them about “grownup drinks,” and Lahey says we should point out that even grownups can get sick if we drink too much.
Ages 7-10
Your conversations about health and safety can get more detailed as kids get older. You can also talk more about their relationships with their friends and their friends’ families. Lahey suggests proposing hypothetical situations for kids to puzzle over. “What would happen if [your] friend Jeffrey drank some beer; what do you think his parents would do?”
These conversations don’t have to be about substances, specifically. Lahey also suggests talking through scenarios like “What might you say if your friend Amy wants you to go up on the highest monkey bars, where you don’t feel safe yet?”
It’s also important at this age to realize that kids will be getting messages from entertainment about alcohol and other substances. Cartoon characters drink a lot, it turns out—1 in 11 cartoons in this study involved characters drinking, often with no ill effects. The other day I walked in on my 10-year-old cackling at a YouTube video in which the Avengers attempt to make an anti-drug PSA, only to discover that Captain America’s reaction time and super stamina are a result of his cocaine habit. (Seriously, watch it. It’s hilarious.) But that made me realize YouTube mentioned cocaine to my kids before I ever did.
Your kids may see some kind of anti-drug education at school during these ages. Some of these programs are ineffective, even potentially increasing the chances kids will do drugs. Others are based more in helping kids manage their emotions and decide when to say no to things they are uncomfortable with. Find out what your children’s school uses, and read up on Blueprints to learn whether it’s an evidence-based program. If you are active in your school’s parent-teacher association, you may want to steer the school toward better programs when those decisions come up.
Some books that may help you and your kids have these conversations:
Ages 11-14
Now we’re hitting the age when some kids have their first experiences with drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or other substances. Statistics show that kids who develop substance use disorder are more likely than the general population to have started young. Maybe that’s because substances are more addictive to developing brains, or maybe kids who are predisposed to addiction end up discovering substances earlier; possibly the correlation reflects a little of both. Either way, it’s worth keeping an eye on the possibility that your kids or their friends may be trying drugs or alcohol, even if it may feel “too early” to consider.
You can talk about drugs and other substances by name, and lay out a family policy. An “unrealistic” zero-tolerance policy may not be a bad idea, Lahey writes, even if you suspect your kid will violate it. It sets a clear expectation, and that sends a strong message. Whatever you decide, communicate it clearly.
Kids in this age group are also hearing more and more about alcohol and drug use, whether they’re personally trying it or not. If a celebrity dies of an overdose or gets popped for using steroids, that’s something you can talk about. It’s also worth discussing advertising and pop culture depictions of substances at a deeper level than you did with younger kids.
Continue helping your kids to develop their social skills and mental-health coping skills. Middle school can be a stressful time, as kids’ social, academic, and athletic lives become more complicated. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends creating “positive experiences” for kids in this age group through family dinners, casual conversations, and activities like sports or volunteer work where you can spend time with your kid doing something instead of just telling them what not to do.
Ages 15-18
Part of kids’ calculus when deciding to try something may include whether or not they think it’s accepted (hence the family messaging) or common. You may want to share statistics with them, like this national survey of eighth through 12th graders that found 41% of high school graduates have never had alcohol and 66% have never used cannabis. As parents, we might find the numbers who have tried these things to be unnervingly high, but your kid may be surprised to find that only 28% of 10th graders have tried any illicit drug (and only 10% if we subtract cannabis) if their friends are saying that “everybody” is doing it.
Similarly, college students tend to think everybody drinks more than them; but half of college students didn’t drink at all in the month they were surveyed, and the minority who binge drink account for most of the alcohol consumed on campus. If you have a kid who is preparing to leave for college, talk them about these statistics and about the consequences of drinking—social, legal, and biological.
When your kid is old enough to leave for college—or if you suspect they’re partying in places where they might be encountering drugs—it’s good to talk to them about fentanyl, which contaminates a lot of recreational drugs. You can get fentanyl test strips to find out whether the party drug you’re about to take contains fentanyl.
It’s also good to know about naloxone (Narcan), which can save a life in case of an overdose: how to use it and where to find it. If your kid is going off to college, are emergency naloxone kits available? You can also buy naloxone to keep on hand; one version was recently made legal over-the-counter, and the prescription version is available without a formal prescription in all 50 U.S. states (plus D.C. and Puerto Rico).
Still, at base, the conversations you’ll have about drugs with your teen follow from the ones you’ve had at other ages. You can talk more specifically now about how cannabis use is associated with memory problems, or how smoking and vaping affect endurance exercise performance. You can also talk about how brain development continues into adulthood (the basis of the sorta-myth that it’s immature until age 25) and how weed is thought to interfere with that development.
In these years, keep listening to them about their lives, and pay attention to what matters to them, big and small. “If they trust you enough to offer a reference to drugs or drunk driving or sex,” Lahey writes, “that’s a conversational door you should open.”