Many parents will sooner or later have to deal with it: a child who experiments with alcohol or drugs. In the Raised section, in which Annemiek Leclaire presents parenting questions to experts, numerous readers’ questions about dealing with alcohol and drugs pass by. How do you warn your child about this and how far should you go in stopping and forbidding?
Alcohol
1Do you intervene if your child drinks alcohol at friends’ homes?
The son (15) of a reader regularly goes to parties at friends’ houses where alcohol is consumed. The parents are not at home then, the mother writes. What can she do? Telling the parents what is happening at their home? Will her son have any problems with that?
Read how, according to experts, the mother to have a conversation with her child
2How do you intervene if your child drinks too much?
A father is concerned about his 17-year-old son’s alcohol consumption. On weekends, he drinks at least five beers per evening. He gains weight, plays football less fanatically and scores less well at school. His son is not allowed to drink alcohol at home and banning it outside the house makes no sense. However?
Value your sonadvises a neuropsychologist
3Is it bad to let a 12-year-old taste a sip of an alcoholic drink?
A father does not believe in anything strictly forbidden, and that also applies to alcohol. So he let his 12-year-old daughter taste a sip of alcohol. Coming into contact with alcohol will happen later, he believes. The people around them thought that alone was really not possible.
This father’s attitude is a little too rowdy, say experts
4Do you tell your partner if you know your stepchild is going to drink at a party?
A reader is happy that her stepson (14) has confided in her about wanting to go drinking at a party, but should she share this with her partner? And thereby betray her stepson’s trust?
Openness and honesty are essential in this situation, emphasize parenting experts
5Can your inexperienced child go on a ‘drinking trip’ to Albufeira?
If almost everyone goes to the Portuguese seaside resort of Albufeira after 5 years of pre-university education, will my daughter be allowed to do that too? That is the question of a mother, who is concerned whether her daughter can handle such a journey with alcohol and drugs. “She has no experience with this at all. I’d rather if she stumbles on too much alcohol or weed or pills I’m nearby and not on the other side of Europe.”
Say no or not? This is what two psychologists think
6Do you inform the parents if your teenager’s party gets out of hand?
A 14-year-old daughter of a reader threw a party for friends at home. Without parents, but with a clear warning about liquor. Still, there was a lot of drinking (a bottle of rum and a bottle of whiskey), the mother discovered upon returning home. Should she tell the girls’ parents about this? “I don’t like clicking, and one of the girls has creepy strict parents.”
The educators strongly disagree
drugs
7Do you tell your child about your own drug use?
A father did not tell the truth when his son asked him if he had ever used drugs. He said no, even though he occasionally took an ecstasy pill in his twenties. “I think admitting normalizes drug use, and I think he’s too young and too sensitive for it.” Or should he have been honest?
Telling the truth is good, but be careful not to romanticize drug useexperts say.
8Can a 14 year old go to a party where there is cocaine?
A father is faced with a dilemma: forbid his daughter from going to a cocaine party, leaving her out of the group, or say yes and teach her to set her own limits.
The parenting experts are convinced, read here why
Do you have questions about raising your own or other people’s (grand)children?
In the Raised section, we anonymously present readers’ dilemmas to the best experts. We will raffle copies of the book among the entrants of questions Other parents do as wella compilation of the first volumes of the section.
This section is anonymous, because difficulties in upbringing can be sensitive. When you submit a question, you will always receive a response from the Raised column author.
Annemiek Leclaire
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