How to Talk About Appletinis…
Remember it is not always easy to talk to your kids at a young age about issues that they will hopefully not encounter until much older. As in the Appletini incident highlighted in my last Blog, here are five useful tips for having “the conversation.”
1. Start early: It is much easier to initiate conversations regarding drugs and alcohol when your children are seven, rather than seventeen. Start early and often!
2. Keep appropriate: Keep the conversation age appropriate and discuss making healthy choices for their bodies. Introduce consequences for behavior. “You want to make good healthy choices for your body, so your body won’t get sick”.
3. Expressing feelings: Create an environment of listening that supports your child’s ability to express their feelings. As your child grows and their interests widen to friends and activities outside the home, you want them to continue to talk to you about their feelings and “keep you in their loop.”
4. Problem solving: Have your child identify safe people to talk to about their problems (including you). Discuss what can happen if they “mask” or hide their emotions. Modeling healthy ways to resolve and express issues with your child empowers them to tackle the bumps in the road.
5. Safety rules: Discuss the importance of safety rules and the dangers of touching, tasting or smelling things that they can’t identify. Stress how very dangerous this can be.
Open communication with your child early on, practicing patience, problem solving, listening to your child and teaching consequences for their behavior are excellent foundations for laying the ground work for future “tough stuff discussions” including the use of alcohol as they head into the pre- teen years. (Oh, the Teen Years…when you will want that Appletini!)
Written by: June Grushka-Rosen (Miss. June Bug) M.Ed. is a Life Coach, Educator, Psychotherapist and mommy of two.
To contact - LifeCoachingYou@Verizon.net
Tags: alcohol, drinking, keep kids from drinking, kids, Parenting, positive
January 5th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Thank you June! This is great advice, much needed!
January 8th, 2008 at 7:36 am
I agree with June on this. I raised a beautiful son by myself for his first 12 years and then had help from a great man. We kept an open communication throughout our mother/son relationship and he is now a beautiful man.
He came to me when something was bothering him and I think the biggest tip I can give any parent is to be quiet at times, don’t condemn and offer gentle wisdom. When a parent flips out….future conversations will never come. When a parent condemns their friend, or their behavior….future conversations will never come.
Asking them the question gently “do you think that was a good idea to…?” Gives them the control and inner wisdom. Then to guide them, again gently, with “Next time you may want to ….” This way you are not telling them, you are suggesting. Again, giving them a sense of control of their lives.
I’m so glad June wrote this article. Lots of parents think their children are too young to talk about certain subjects. Sex, drugs, stealing, etc. Our children are getting older, not wiser, faster now. Ask my husband who helps to deliver babies of 12 and 13 year old girls at times.
Thanks June.