Tag Archives: risky behavior

Guest Posts, parenting

Talking to College-Bound Teens About Risky Behavior

risky behavior

You’re likely to feel a little anxious about the idea of your teen going off to college. Your years of being able to protect and coddle your child are about to end, and you know how cruel the world can be. 

One fear that you might have about your teen going off to college is that of drug and alcohol abuse. Many teens face problems such as peer pressure and the need to fit in with the “everybody’s doing it” crowd. 

Here are some tips for talking to your teen about the dangers of succumbing to peer pressure and risky behavior in college.

Avoid Sounding Too Autocratic

The tone of your conversation is the most critical factor in reaching your college-bound teen about an essential topic like alcohol and drug abuse. 

Young persons tend to get defensive if they feel as though a parental figure is “laying down the law” or restricting their lives. You should approach your child as if you are a friend and not so much a parent. 

The best way to approach this subject is to wait until you can have a calm discussion about the matter. You might want to discuss it after dinner or while you’re driving somewhere with your teen.

Reassure Your Teen of Your Love and Trust

Your teen needs to know that you respect their independence and that you trust their judgment. At the same time, you must help them understand that unfamiliar situations are going to arise. They’ll have to deal with people who don’t have the best intentions. 

Let your teen know that he or she will come across people from a variety of family backgrounds and cultures. Those backgrounds and cultures might clash with the ones that you established as you were raising your teen. 

Tell your child that it’s okay to stand his or her ground and not go along with suggested behavioral changes just because it may seem trendy to others.

Draw From Your Experiences

Storytelling is an effective way to reach your teen about alcohol and drug recovery. It will help you to connect with your teen emotionally, and it will display your empathetic nature. 

If you can think of a time that you overcame peer pressure, you should tell your teen a story about it. Tell your child who presented the peer pressure and what you did to overcome it. 

Alternatively, you can share an experience that you had experimenting with drugs or alcohol. Be honest if you ever had to seek alcohol and drug recovery.

Use Scientific or News-Based Quotes

Sometimes, young people don’t believe anything until they can see hard evidence that it’s not good for them. In that case, you might want to gather news reports and statistics that pertain to drug and alcohol recovery. 

Find articles and statistics about the health hazards of drugs and alcohol. Collect news stories about college students who have suffered the negative effects of drugs or alcohol. 

Many students have failed out of college, gotten into accidents, and lost their lives because of substance abuse. Your teen needs to know the reality of such incidents. Don’t sugarcoat the truth at all.

Boost Your Teen’s Self-Esteem

It’s important to point out your teen’s good qualities when you’re discussing peer pressure. 

Many teens fall victim to peer pressure because they need to feel as though they belong to a particular group. They desire acceptance, and that desire for acceptance sometimes gets them into trouble. 

Spend some time giving your teen positive affirmations that will help encourage self-esteem. Your teen will be less likely to fall into the trap of peer pressure if he or she is aware of all the positive qualities that make that person unique. 

A person who has a strong sense of value won’t feel the need to fit in with anyone else.

Establish Positive Communication Lines

Finally, you must establish healthy communication with your college-bound teen. Your teen should feel confident that you will be available for questions or concerns or to tell you about each day away at college.

Let your teen know that you are available to talk at any time of the day or night. You might even want to set up a regular day and time that you can voice or video chat with your teens to let them hear your voice or see your face. Your teen might find a lot of strength in knowing that you’re present even though there’s a distance between you.

The tips mentioned above should help you communicate your concerns to your teen without causing him or her to get offensive. Hopefully, your son or daughter will go on to have a fruitful experience in college and live to his or her full potential.

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Author Bio: Patrick Bailey is a professional writer mainly in the fields of mental health, addiction, and living in recovery. He attempts to stay on top of the latest news in the addiction and the mental health world and enjoy writing about these topics to break the stigma associated with them. 

Sources

parenting

How to Discuss Risky Behavior in College Without Lecturing

 

risky behavior

Graduation day is approaching for parents of high school seniors. It’s been a long four years. The last year has been especially trying (and exciting) for those parents whose teens are heading for college after graduation.

With all the college preparations ahead this summer, there is an uncomfortable, and often dreaded, task of talking about college drinking, hooking up, and other risky behavior. Let’s face it: no teenager wants to be lectured. Especially when she is on the cusp of becoming an adult (or so she thinks). Ask any teenager and they will tell you parents are experts at lecturing. Most tune it out (so they say) because for the last 18 years they have been told what to do and what not to do.

Knowing this, how do you discuss risky behavior in college without lecturing?

Listen. It’s hard to do in the fast paced world we live in. But find a time when your teen likes to talk. For my daughter it was while she was getting dressed to go out with friends. I sat in her room and listened to her talk about life, love, and other teenage passions. I not only listened, I learned a lot—about her dreams, her friends, her fears and yes, her behavior.

Next, open a discussion. Once the topic of risky behavior comes up, whatever it may be, the door is opened. For my son, he was telling me about one of his friends that was high all the time. Instead of lecturing him about the “dangers of drug abuse”, I asked him what he thought about it. He was more than willing to discuss it and that gave me the opportunity to share my opinion without lecturing.

Finally, look for opportunities to insert advice into the conversations you have with your teen. This may be while watching a television program, at the dinner table, in the car after a movie, or after a long night out with friends. I found both my children were willing to “spill the beans” after coming home from a date or a night out with friends. Take advantage of their willingness to talk.

Your teen will observe risky behavior before going to college. You can bank on it. How she or he views that behavior will determine how they respond when they are alone at college. Your observations and your non-lecturing advice will be valuable and, believe it or not, remembered when they find themselves in risky situations.

Teenagers (and adults) dread those words, “We need to talk”. Avoid lecturing at all costs. Insert your wisdom and advice into the opportune moments instead. Be stealth. Be sneaky. But most of all, be their parent.

To prepare yourself for these conversations, check out these blog posts:

Talking to Your Student About Drinking in College

Top 10 Things Every Parent Should Know about “Hooking Up”

parenting, Wednesdays parent

Wednesday’s Parent: Talking to Your Teen About Irresponsible Behavior

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irresponsible behaviorOne of the first things we learn growing up is that all of our actions have consequences. If we pull a glass of water off the table, it will spill all over us. If we touch a hot burner on the stove, it will burn. If we pick up a knife on the blade, it will cut us.

Selective memory loss

Teaching teens the consequences of irresponsible behavior can be challenging. Unfortunately, too many teens begin to make choices during their teen years that are life changing and life altering. They don’t rationalize that sleeping with someone you just met can have consequences: sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, pregnancy, rape and even at the very worst murder. They don’t think that cheating on a test in school, even if you don’t get caught, robs you of an education and learning. They don’t see that getting in a car with a drunk driver could end in tragedy because most teens who are drunk believe they have the capacity to drive. They can’t look far enough into the future to see that going to a college they can’t afford could land them in overwhelming debt after graduation.

Running down the scenarios

I know. All those scenarios are a bit dramatic. But let’s just think before we discount them as viable examples of ignoring the consequences of our choices. Your teen would be well served if he did the same. The next time your teen is tempted to sleep with someone they just met, what would happen if they ran over the previously stated consequences in their mind before they decide to do it? There would be consequences to their decision: good or bad. Before they get into a car with another teen who is drunk or drive drunk themselves, imagine what would happen if there is an accident and their friends or other innocent drivers and passengers are killed. Before getting wasted, imagine what would happen if he got alcohol poisoning and his friends couldn’t recognize the symptoms or get help when it was needed.

All decisions have consequences

When you’re young and your whole life is ahead of you, you tend to function in the present. Twenty or thirty years from now seems like an eternity to someone in their teens. But time has a way of catching up with us and every choice we make when we are young has both good and bad consequences. The trick is to know when those consequences aren’t worth the risk. And the other trick is to pause long enough before taking those risks to weigh both the good and the bad.

If your teen gets anything from this bit of advice, let it be this: take time to think before you act. Weigh the good and the bad consequences. Then once they decide, make the best of their decision and swallow the good with the bad. Every path they take in life has the potential for greatness. Encourage your teen to be wise and think before they act, knowing that their choice could potentially be the wrong one.

Read Wendy’s Post: College Prep Red Flags

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Wednesday’s child may be full of woe but Wednesday’s Parent can substitute action for anxiety. Each Wednesday Wendy and I will provide parent tips to get and keep your student on the college track. It’s never too late or too early to start!

The bonus is on the fourth Wednesday of each month when Wendy and I will host Twitter chat #CampusChat at 9pm ET/6pm PT. We will feature an expert on a topic of interest for parents of the college-bound.

Wednesday’s Parent will give twice the info and double the blog posts on critical parenting issues by clicking on the link at the end of the article from parentingforcollege to pocsmom.com and vice versa.

college guidance, parenting, substance abuse

Mom-Approved Tips: Heading to College May Be Deadly

 

college may be deadlyYes. I said heading to college may be deadly. At the risk of being a naysayer and offering a negative image, recent news confirms my concern. At least eight freshmen at U.S. colleges have died in the first few weeks of this school year. That’s by no means an epidemic, but it is something parents should address with their future college students.

In an article by Inside Higher Ed, “Lives Cut Short”, the stories of these tragedies is discussed:

At least eight freshmen at U.S. colleges have died in the first few weeks of this school year. The deaths have cast a shadow over the campuses on which the students spent too little time, but they’re also a cross-section of the kinds of issues and decisions facing freshmen as they begin their college careers — and of the choices some young students may not be prepared to make. Even colleges with the best approaches to educating students about mental health issues may have very little time to reach those who may be vulnerable.

Why is this happening?

You’ve lectured them. You’ve warned them. You’ve taught them right from wrong. But have you prepared them to face what waits for them at college: stress, extreme peer pressure, and abundant alcohol?

During senior year you are so focused on getting in to college, that often the most important discussions get shoved to the back burner. We cram those discussions in on the trip to move in and neglect to offer our kids advice on how to deal with the difficult decisions involved during those first few weeks of college.

“It’s a huge transition and all the support systems are different,” said Pete Goldsmith, dean of students at Indiana University at Bloomington. “For students who have lived in very structured situations and environments, going to a college campus when very suddenly they have this new kind of freedom and new choices to make, it can be pretty overwhelming.”

What tools should you give your student before he leaves for college?

Discussions about the dangers he will face in college are great—start there. But discuss the “what-ifs”:

  • What if everyone around you is binge drinking and wants you to join in? How will you respond?
  • What if you see someone who is obviously overindulging? What should you do and who should you tell?
  • What if a student tells you he’s suicidal? Where can you go for help?
  • What if you witness dangerous behavior? What should you do?
  • How do you recognize alcohol poisoning—how much is too much?

Don’t delude yourself into thinking that it’s not going to happen to your kid. Every school is a party school. Alcohol is readily available, especially to freshmen who consider it an “initiation” into adulthood to get when their parents aren’t a factor and they are free to abuse without repercussions. Sticking your head in the sand won’t help you or your student. Discuss the “what ifs” before freshman year.