Well, I didn't lie to my teenager about marijuana. I didn't tell her it would kill her or really mess up her brain, either. I just explained that it is harder to concentrate, easier to get really lazy about schoolwork, that you feel like eating way too much junk food, and that kids who do drugs in high school tend to be more disturbed and less successful in general. I expressed the hope that if she wants to try marijuana, that she wait until she is an adult. Her classmates who smoke marijuana are pretty weirded out, and she clearly sees that.
I also remind her every few weeks that if she ever gets into any kind of trouble at all, her father and I are her resource for getting out of it, and that we will always come and get her wherever she is, without any lectures or anything. I think it is much more important to try to keep communication open and trust happening than to get hung up on the small stuff. I have always tried to stress, for example, that there are several drugs that can kill you, and that marijuana is not one of them. Just this morning we were listening to a sad story on the car radio on the way to school, and I reinforced what the story was saying--that snorting heroin can kill you, sometimes the very first time because it is so strong these days. |
