• Keep your best motives in mind.
When we feel upset, we become angry or fearful and, as a result, our motives change. Without realizing it, we begin to focus on punishing, being right, or keeping the peace rather than healthy problem solving. Before talking to your teenager about drugs, pause for a moment and ask the focusing question: What do I really want? This pause can help you get your motives in check and move from simply “keeping the peace” through silence to being a powerful influence on your teen.
• Confront with facts, not judgments.
When you present the facts, you obligate your teen to respond to the information. When you use judgments or accusatory language, it appears you intend simply to humiliate or punish, and your teen feels no obligation to engage in the conversation.
• Make it safe.
Teens may become defensive during your crucial conversations less because of what you’re saying than because of why they think you’re saying it.
• State what you don’t intend and what you do intend.
• Be flexible about when you talk, but not about whether you talk.
Control is a huge issue for teens. Sometimes parents provoke unnecessary conflict by demanding conversations be on their terms. It’s best to try to engage your teen in dialogue by respecting his or her preferences about when to talk.
• Respecting your teen’s timetable for talking does not mean you are no longer the parent.
If he or she doesn’t want to talk now, show respect by being flexible — within reason. If your teen just doesn’t want to talk at all, help him or her understand why talking is required.
• Create a “safety reserve” by creating safety even when there are no problems.
Communicating respect, praising small positive signs, “catching” them when they are being good, and showing an interest in your teen’s life will help him or her feel safer talking to you when problems emerge.
• Discuss, agree on and stick with boundaries.
If you talk about rules around curfews, choice of friends and your expectations of knowing where your teen is before he or she is tempted to make bad choices, it is much easier to enforce them later. Then, when boundaries are violated, hold your teen accountable consistently. If it’s a boundary, it should always be a boundary.
• Evaluate the dialogue.
You’re aiming for a two-way, face-to-face conversation that gives your teen room to disagree with you and communicate a different point of view. After the conversation, ask yourself who did most of the talking. If your teen didn’t do at least 25 percent of it, you didn’t ask enough questions — or you didn’t create enough safety to allow your teen to participate fully.
For more information or to find out how you can be involved with prevention efforts in your community, contact the Area Prevention Resource Center at (580) 490-9197.
Information from www.theantidrug.com and www.crucialconversations.com/anti-drug
