Q&A: Addressing Drug and Alcohol Use with my Teenager

Two parents have asked similar questions about teenage drug and alcohol use, and I’ll address them both in this Q&A

1. My 15 year old son just started in high school this year.  He has always been a good student, but this year his grades have dropped and he is hanging around with friends that I’m not sure about.  He is also giving me some attitude lately, which is not like him.  When I ask him about his grades, he makes excuses and blames the teachers.  I’m worried that he might be getting involved with alcohol or drugs, or something else.  I am tempted to look at his e-mail account and his phone. I have already looked around his room, and felt terrible afterward!  What should I do?  When is it okay to invade my son’s privacy?

 2. Dear Dr. Nagpal,
How do I explain the dangers of drugs and alcohol to my teenage son without sounding like a fuddy duddy? I want him to enjoy the company of his friends but I worry about the dangers he will be exposed to. Thanks,Laura

 As I discussed in a previous Q& A, Struggling with 16 year old, adolescence is a time when identity development is a significant task and figuring out “who am I” becomes a primary question. Therefore, it is not unusual for kids who have normally been “good kids” to start engaging in some behaviors that are new and different for them, and frankly, alarming for their parents. Your concerns are real and justified, based on the behaviors you have described. However, it is an art to challenge these behaviors in a way that doesn’t alienate the teenager and engage their oppositional tendencies.

 As someone who was a very rebellious teenager, I can guarantee that misguided attempts to exert parental control are a sure way to alienate your teen. As a parent who has raised a spirited teenager, I can relate to the anxiety that is produced when kids start to “grow up” and act in ways that are new and different. As a professional, with my years of working with families, I will tell you that it’s well worth learning some skills that are designed to address teen behaviors that raise “red flags,” and our anxiety level right along with it. Even with the alarm bells going off, it is important that we step back and figure out the best, age-appropriate approach. 

For instance, taking a cue from the tone of the second question – “how do I explain the dangers of drugs and alcohol to my teenage son without sounding like a fuddy duddy?” bringing up the issue for discussion, before making further choices to breach your son’s privacy, can be a helpful strategy. While I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions, substance use (alcohol or drugs) is a very real possibility at your son’s age. Many teens use drugs and alcohol as a way of dealing with stress – and the transition from middle school to high school is indeed one of the risk factors for underage drinking.

Although not all teens drink, the percentage who has tried alcohol increases with every year after age12, when it is around 10%. By age 15, 50% of teens have tried alcohol at least once. Most underage drinking happensThis type of information can provide a starting point for a conversation with a teenager. In fact, the SAMHSA’s Too Smart To Start website also provides a wealth of other information on the effects of underage alcohol use as well as tips for parents on how to talk to their teens.

Here is my Readers’ Digest version of how not to sound like a “fuddy duddy” (I love that term!), when you talk to your kids about drugs and alcohol use:

1. Start with a caring approach – expressing you are aware that their life is changing. Ask questions about stressors, and really try to listen to the teen’s point of view rather than minimizing or judging what might be stressful to them
2. Then state what you have observed, and your concerns for your teenager’s well being.
3. Emphasize that you are no stranger to the idea that teens drink and use drugs
4. You may use you knowledge of the facts about underage drinking to challenge any defensiveness you encounter
5. Do not give suggestions or try to “fix” the problem, unless asked, but do let the teenager know the household rules about underage use of alcohol and drugs.
6. Related to # 5, consider the rules you want to have in place prior to having a conversation with your teen. Do make sure you have clear, fair, and enforceable consequences for breaking any of the rules you make.

As far as snooping goes, whether directly searching your child’s room or checking his cell phone or email, opinions vary about the appropriateness of this approach. Spying on your 15-year old may be unnecessary if you communicate your concerns and your son responds in a positive manner. In my opinion, breaching your child’s privacy should be used only as a last resort. However, let’s be clear that safety comes before privacy, and privacy is a privilege. If your child does not respond in kind to your attempts to communicate with care, honesty, and openness, by all means, do what you need to do to keep him safe, even if that means checking-up on him. In fact, let him know up front that you will be doing this, and refuse to be manipulated by statements like, “but that’s my phone, you have no right to look at it,” or “if you look in my room, you’ll just force me to hide stuff elsewhere.” That may be true, but you can only do what you can do, and certainly you must do what you can do. On that note, please be aware that teenagers are most likely to obtain alcohol from within their own homes. So, be sure you are not inadvertently providing access to the very substance that you are trying to restrict you child from using. 

If you discover that your fears are unfounded (and I certainly hope this is the case), remember that prevention is better than remediation. I encourage you to face the facts about underage drinking and make sure you are discussing this important topic in a straightforward way. April is Alcohol Awareness Month. This could be the perfect opportunity to talk to your teenager about the dangers of underage substance use.

Disclaimer: My responses in this column are for educational purposes only and do not imply a professional relationship. Any contact you have with me through this column does not constitute a client-therapist relationship. It is not possible for me to know your personal situation from the question/s you ask, and therefore the information provided by me should not be considered psychotherapy. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding any mental health symptom or medical condition. Never disregard professional psychological or medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in Q&A with Dr. Nagpal. Neither myself nor Still Waters Counseling, LLC, or any other entity involved in the creation, support, maintenance, or provision of this column will be liable for any incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of your access to, or use of, this column.

What “Should” Moms do on Mother’s Day?

Sleep in

Have breakfast in bed

Go back to sleep

Wake up around noon, to the sounds of laundry being done and dinner being made

Hang out

Have leftovers for lunch

Take a nap

Wake up and go for a nice long walk

Read

Read some more while you wait for dinner

Eat dinner

Watch your favorite T.V. shows

Go to bed and sleep for 9 hours

This is what all mothers SHOULD do on Mother’s Day, right? Or something like it.

Here’s what Dr. Seuss might say about mothers. Moms come in all shapes and sizes. Working moms, career moms, and stay-at-home moms. Wanna-be moms, moms with lots of kids, moms who have lost a kid, moms raising kids with special needs. Step-moms and foster-moms. Gay moms and single moms. Or something like it.

Considering there are all types of mothers in all types of situations, what “should” mothers really do on Mother’s Day? Clearly, a one size fits all recipe isn’t going to work. Or is it? Hmm.. I do wonder what the world would look like if ALL moms all over the world stopped doing what moms do, just for one day! Can you picture the headlines the next day? Kids with Dirty Diapers Wander Streets, Teachers Upset as Kids Show up Without Homework, Hungry Children Look for Food but Restaurants Closed, Wall Street Collapses as No One Can Make a Decision (tongue in cheek). Truly, this is in no way meant to diminish what fathers contribute to families and society, but I do have a hard time imagining what the world would look like if mothers stopped doing everything they do for one entire day!

The question really is, should moms stop doing what they do for an entire day? I think not. Moms need to do what moms need to do, whether it’s on Mother’s Day or any other day. No, the world would not come to an end, but do we really need to feel like we “should” be having the perfect day, even if that isn’t what we need or want to be doing? And how many moms feel badly because that perfect day isn’t really happening for them? And, isn’t that missing the point? Should moms be appreciated and made to feel special on Mother’s Day for what they do – yes, absolutely! And on every other day as well!

So, what do mothers REALLY do on Mother’s Day? Well, it depends. But here’s one scenario:

Wake up to crying baby (or screaming kids)

Feed baby (or kids)

Try to get some more sleep

Get up and eat Something.

Get all those things done that didn’t get done during the week, if you don’t want to have to do those things during the week when you will already have more than enough to do

Juggle these tasks with getting kids to Activities – (yes, they have those even on Mother’s Day)

Eat dinner (somehow)

Read Mother’s Day cards (hopefully a few)

Go to bed exhausted, but happy to have been appreciated, and happy to be a mom

Happy Mother’s Day. Hope you had a good one!

Q&A: Internet-Induced Trauma after Boston Bombings?

Q&A: Internet Induced Truama after Boston Bombings?

 Hello Dr. Nagpal,
Last week, after the Boston Marathon bombings, I became complete engrossed
with the “who done it” aspect of the story. I followed along on Reddit.com’s “FindBostonBombers” forum, where users posted picture after picture of the scene, looking for people who came with backpacks and left without. Many pictures were post explosion, and showed the gruesome carnage. I listened to the Boston police scanner during the shootout and manhunt, while following updates on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet. This week, I feel like I’m in a fog. I don’t know why, but I feel certain it’s related to immersing myself into the tragedy in Boston. Recently, I was in a crowd, and for a brief second, I visualized the crowd as if I was studying the picture on the Internet. That’s when I knew I’d overdone it. So I have two questions: 1) What drives me (and others) to devote the better part of a week to trying to live inside a tragedy? And, 2) Can consumption of information over the Internet cause a mild form of PTSD?

 

Dear Well-Intentioned but Foggy:

Thank you for sharing your story with us. You are right. Engaging in the type of obsessive behavior that you did, following the Boston Marathon bombings, is the likely reason for your “fog,” and most certainly the reason you found yourself scanning an unrelated crowd. Many are driven to these types of behaviors after a senseless tragedy, typically out of a desire to do something to help. In this instance, there was a specific request by law enforcement to have the general public assist in finding the “Boston Bombers.” You fell prey to the urge to find these people who caused so much harm, and find them fast! The mix of grief and anger that followed this tragedy, the desire for justice to be done, and in this case, the possibility of being able to contribute something to make this happen, are likely what drove you (and countless others) to “live inside” this tragedy for “the better part of a week.”

However, as your hours and days in front of the screen might testify, not many of us have the same talent at breaking code as mathematician, John Nash, in A Beautiful Mind. John Nash did, indeed, “lose his mind” in his quest to find the “hidden clues” in newspapers and magazines. The fact that John Nash had a mental illness to begin with, is a different matter.

The truth is that many of us will develop signs of Post Traumatic Stress disorder, or PTSD, when focusing on images of a tragedy. It seems like Reddit.com’s forum not only showed pictures of people during the race, but as you said, also of the “gruesome carnage” afterwards. I am afraid that you did, in actuality, start suffering from a form of PTSD that can affect those not directly impacted by the tragedy, but who are viewing images of the experience. The most common recommendation to recover from this is to stop or reduce exposure to media images of the event.

Fear can also be a common response to unexpected violence and another reason why we might continue to watch internet or television stories long after the event is past. Somehow, if we know more, or so we reason, we can prevent this from happening. Not true, but it sure is a common response when an event like the Marathon Bombing leaves us with a sense of vulnerability, a possibility that “it could have been me,” or that a loved one might have been hurt. I can tell you this was true for me, with my son being about 3 miles away from the bombings, and in residence at a University through which the bombers later led the police in a chase. Although, fortunately, he took great care to keep me informed of his safety, I did notice myself following the various news stories and being at a greater than normal “alert” level, until after the second bomber was safely in custody.

I know that some of you might have had loved ones who were even closer, or you yourself were present at the Boston Marathon. The closer you were, the greater the likelihood of trauma. However, sometimes an event such as this one can simply serve as a trigger for a past traumatic memory. I can only imagine what some of the victims and families of past bomb attacks are going through. Whatever the reason for our trauma response being triggered, it is important that we recognize when we are being affected. Here are some additional recommendations for dealing with any post-traumatic responses we might be experiencing:

1. Try to continue with normal routines. There is something quite grounding about routines.
2. Try to get enough sleep. Lack of sleep can be disorienting in itself.
3. Talk to someone you trust about your feelings. Then try to reduce the “head time” you are giving to the event. In other words, try to move to another topic or distract yourself if you find yourself thinking about the event.
4. Stay connected to loved ones and friends. Isolation can increase the sense of trauma and close off avenues for healing.

Again, thanks for writing in with this question. There will no doubt be more photos and stories about the Boston Marathon bombings in the weeks to come. I hope that realizing what you did about your own reactions, you have been able to re-direct you attention away from the media, or at least stay away from the media stories that continue to aggressively portray images of the Boston attacks.