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Dont Panic!

This pamphlet was originally published by Stanton Peele in 1983 with CompCare Publications,
Minneapolis. It was revised in 1996 with the editorial assistance of Marianne Apostolides and
financial support from The Lindesmith Center, New York.

A Parents Guide To Understanding and Preventing Alcohol and Drug Abuse

Stanton Peele, Ph.D. Morristown, NJ

Marianne Apostolides Berkeley, CA

Abstract: Dont Panic offers parents a non-alarmist approach for understanding and dealing with
adolescent substance use. In the place of panic, this pamphlet provides a sensible, human, and
responsible perspective on raising children in a world where they confront drugs whether
legal or illegal every day.

This pamphlet provides parents with tips for understanding and dealing with
teenage alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use.

Many parents wish their children would never try drugs. But 8 out of 10 children will try alcohol
and/or other drugs before they graduate from high school. Given that fact, what can a parent do?
How can a parent prevent abuse? This pamphlet gives parents a sensible, responsible approach
for raising children in a world where they confront drugs (whether legal or illegal) every day. It
gives parents suggestions about how to prevent substance abuse problems in kids who dont have
problems, and how to recognize and help those who do.

Teenagers often use drugs as a part of adolescent exploration. A small portion

abuse drugs to escape from problems they cant handle in a positive way.

Almost half of teenagers graduating from high school have tried an illegal drug. Over 80% have
drunk alcohol, and 65% have smoked cigarettes.1 These numbers can surely be frightening for

parents. But before we become alarmed, we should examine what these numbers actually tell us.
They tell us the number of youngusers, not young abusers. Heres what we mean by this
distinction:

Drug use differs from drug abuse.

Drugs are powerful substances that can have harmful consequences. Teenagers or
adults abuse drugs if they rely on drugs or use them to excess. However, many people in all
societies use drugs occasionally without disrupting their lives. This is substance use. For
example, most adults who drink alcohol do so only occasionally or with meals. These drinkers
differ from alcoholics in the same way that drug users differ from drug abusers.

The most important question is: Why do some kids move from
substance use to substance abuse? The answer does not lie in the
substance itself. The answer lies in the way a teenager relates to
him/herself, other people, and his/her surroundings.

Problems arise when a teenager is not involved in activities that express positive values and does
not have a supportive family and social environment. Without these anchors, some children seek
ways of escape. Drugs offer such an escape, although their long-term consequences can be
harmful. Teenagers susceptible to drug abuse can often be identified by risk factors such as
poverty,2 emotional problems like depression or anxiety, antisocial peer groups, and a disturbed
family environment. These factors in turn create low self-esteem and a desire to escape feelings
like self-doubt, powerlessness, and hopelessness.

A child with risk factors is not destined to abuse drugs. He or she is

simply at higher risk.

Up to 70% of kids in the highest risk conditions do not become substance abusers.3 These
teenagers can build on their strengths (known as resilience or protective factors) to prevent
the negative factors from dominating their lives. Resilience factors include having a strong
relationship with an adult and confidence-building experiences at school, work, or other
extracurricular activities. Such factors build self-esteem, a sense of personal control, a desire to
be healthy, and a link to mainstream activities and values.4
What does this mean for parents? It means that you can help your child build resilience to avoid
drug abuse.

Most adolescent substance users do not become abusers.

It can be very reassuring to know that the large majority of people who try drugs do not go on to
become regular users or abusers. This does not mean that parents should never discuss drug use

with their children. But it should give parents greater comfort in thinking about teenage drug use,
drug abuse prevention, and drug abuse treatment.
With this new comfort level, parents can focus on helping their children develop skills,
confidence, and decision-making abilities. By giving kids some room for experimentation while
still establishing boundaries (curfews, avoiding driving while intoxicated, upholding
responsibilities at home, and so on according to your own values), parents can help their children
to make responsible decisions and, eventually, to mature into adulthood.
Parents can play an important role in preventing and dealing with drug abuse. They
do so by fostering healthy and responsible attitudes in their children.

The best drug prevention program is simple: supporting, educating, and caring for children. This
prevention program starts in the family and continues in school and social activities. Here are
some concrete ways that you as a parent can continue your drug prevention program by helping
your child develop decision-making skills and positive interests.

Teach your child to avoid excess by practicing moderate substance

use, whether the substance is alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, food,
caffeine, etc.

Your own habits are very important for determining your childs habits. For example, when
parents diet or eat excessively, they may affect not only their childs eating habits, but they may
preoccupy him/her with concerns about body image that persist for a lifetime. When parents
chain smoke or allow smoky air to fill the home, they teach their child a lack of respect for
health. Parents are most effective at preventing substance abuse when they demonstrate moderate
substance use themselves. 5

Talk with your teenager openly and honestly.

Communication is one of those truisms in parenting: Everybody thinks its good, everybody
thinks they should do it, and few know exactly how! A large part of communication is the ability
to relax and listen to hear what your child is saying rather than what you want your child to be
saying or what you fear your child is saying.
Try this approach in speaking with your teenager: What do you think is the difference between
sensible and dangerous drinking? Ask your child to tell you his/her thoughts and feelings about
smoking tobacco or marijuana. The chances are your child sees other kids at school drinking and
smoking. Ask how your child thinks and feels about this. Ask your child what it means to
him/her that some kids are using drugs that are illegal.
Together, you and your teen can then discuss the issues surrounding substance use, and can adopt
principles of healthy behavior.6 These principles will vary according to your own beliefs and

circumstances. But whatever principles you and your child adopt, open communication is
important.

Talk with your child about feelings as well as ideas.

The inability to deal with emotions can lead to excessive substance use or other problems like
violence or irresponsible sexual behavior. Parents can help their children learn to deal with
emotions. Talking with your teenager about his/her emotions is the first step. Let him/her discuss
feelings openly. Try to listen calmly and react without judgment or punishment. Talk about your
feelings too. This discussion can help a teenager accept his/her emotions and recognize that
he/she has choices for dealing with emotions.

Encourage supportive relationships between your child and other

adults or responsible young people, whether an uncle, older sibling,
track coach, boss, etc.

Some of the communication points weve recommended are difficult to achieve, especially since
it can be uncomfortable for parents to discuss some issues and feelings with their children.
Remember, you can always ask a trusted adult to talk with your child, or stay out of the way as a
relationship grows between your child and a responsible older person.7

Encourage your child to develop positive interests, even if those

interests are not the ones you would choose for him/her.

Your childs interests and positive involvements can help him/her take responsibility, build
confidence, channel energy and feelings, and generate enthusiasm, creativity, and productivity.
Children with interests whether in sports, music, the school newspaper, photography, drama,
volunteer or paid work, etc. learn about life while developing skills and a sense of self-worth.
These activities can also give your child a powerful stake in growing up healthy.

Show your child that his/her opinions and decisions matter.

As children get older, they form more definite ideas about matters that concern them. Parents
cant always follow their childrens preferences, but they can take them into account and treat
their kids as contributing members of the family, community, and society. Children get a true
sense of their importance when they see that their opinions and actions are taken seriously and
can affect another person, like a parent. For example, your child learns that what he/she says has
meaning when you ask for, consider and/or act on your childs opinion.
You can also teach your child about responsibility by following through on promises you make,
and by explicitly expecting him/her to follow through on the promises he/she makes. When
children show they deserve trust by responsibly following through on their word, parents should
give them that trust.

Give your child the respect and leeway to follow through on and
take responsibility for his/her own decisions.

Were asking you to do a lot: Were asking you to let your child make mistakes. In practice, you
need to judge which experiences your teenager can safely manage. But we as parents have to
allow our children to face situations that require them to use self-control and good judgment. In
these situations, children will have to consider their options and the consequences of each option.
They will make their own decisions decisions for which they take responsibility. This ability
to make good decisions is important, considering that parents cant always be around to protect
their children. When we realize that about 90% of high school seniors say alcohol, cigarettes, and
marijuana are easy to get,8 we see that children must be able to make choices on their own in
order to stay out of trouble.
Parents can play an important role in dealing with drug abuse. They can do so by
remaining calm and taking steps to help their children deal with the causes of their
problems.

Even though most teens who experiment with substances never go on to abuse those substances,
parents need to be aware of actions they can take when a childis abusing drugs or alcohol. It is
important for parents to remain calm, to deal with the root causes of problems, and to
communicate with their children either themselves or through another trusted adult. As a part of
this process, parents and teens may find counseling helpful.

If a child is having trouble with substances, try to address

the sourcesof the trouble rather than the expression of the trouble
(i.e., drug misuse).

The sources of a childs problems can be poverty, depression, uncontrolled anger or anxiety,
family turmoil, and/or an absence of purpose. The source is not the drug itself. Substances can
certainly make things worse, and can help that child feel trapped. But taking away drugs (or
attempting to do so) will not eliminate the causes of substance abuse. On the other hand,
changing the causes can alter substance use patterns. If a teens problems and substance use seem
manageable, formal counseling may not be necessary. The teenager may simply need to get
involved in positive activities and to have open, nonjudgmental discussions with an adult that
he/she can relate to.

If you are unsure about whether your child has a problem, calmly
ask yourself and your child certain questions, consider the answers
seriously, and withhold moral judgment.

You and your child can determine the severity of drug use: is it experimentation, outright
dependence, or somewhere in between? To answer that question, ask yourself some questions:
Is my child dropping out of activities that were important to him/her without replacing those

activities? Does he/she ever come home drunk or high? Has a parent or a teacher called me to
express concern about my child? Has my child stopped doing schoolwork and meeting family
responsibilities? If the answer to several of these questions is yes, you need to make your child
aware that you are concerned. Discuss your concerns with your child and professionals such as a
teacher or school counselor (after checking first that this discussion will be confidential).
Since it is easy, even natural, for parents to get over-concerned about their children, be sure to
ask your child some questions rather than tell him/her that he/she has a problem: Your behavior
concerns me, can you tell me or someone else whats going on? Am I right to be concerned? At
the same time, you can state: I feel like you need to talk with someone. I feel like you need to
think about your own behavior. Who do you feel that you can talk with? As much as possible,
let your child know that you are serious without panicking. Convey the importance of the issue
without making him/her feel cornered and attacked.

Once you and/or another adult has talked with your child, you and
your child can decide whether counseling would help him/her
progress out of unhealthy substance use.

Children need to be a part of the decision to seek treatment. Otherwise, parents are in a position
of coercing their children. This kind of tough love can be a highly risky business: It strips
children of their identities and attacks their insecure egos. Going this far is only necessary when
a child is seriously harming him/herself. Even then, less aggressive interventions which respect
the childs identity may achieve the same protective purpose.9
If your child needs treatment but resists it, ask someone whom your child trusts and respects to
talk to him/her. That peer or adult can start an honest discussion that can help your child decide
to get counseling.

There are several ways to find an appropriate therapist.

In finding a therapist, you and your child can talk to psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychiatric
social workers. Your family doctor, school social worker, or even close friends or relatives may
have some suggestions for finding appropriate local therapists. When choosing a therapist, it is
most important to:

Find a person your child feels comfortable with and responds to (even if that
means changing therapists after a few sessions)

Find someone who wont focus exclusively on your childs substance abuse
itself, but will help your child recognize the problems that underlie his/her
substance use

Take economics into account, because breaking the family bank will only
make it more difficult for you to help your child and yourself

Remember, you and your child have the right to ask questions of a
potential therapist.

There are many therapists; some are good, some are not. Listen to what your instincts tell
you and what your child says after talking to a therapist a few times. We emphasize what your
child says because it is important to check in with your childs feelings, to make sure that he/she
does not feel shut down or manipulated.

Always keep in mind the goal of treatment.

The goal of treatment is to ease the child away from substance abuse by fostering independent
thinking and decision-making, and by creating a positive stake in life. This objective can be met
through three factors we spoke of earlier:

Encouraging a teenager to develop a strong relationship with an adult

Encouraging a teenager to discover and develop interests

Helping a teenager control the sources of his/her problems rather than

focusing only on the expression of those problems the substance abuse

These goals are not often achieved through hospitalization or

inpatient treatment programs.

Inpatient treatment programs are rarely justified for childrens healthy development.10 They can
even harm children by giving them identities as alcoholics or substance abusers, and setting them
up for relapse.11 The programs also foster relapse by isolating children in a setting thats very
different from the setting theyll face outside treatment. This is the case for a parent who says,
My child does very well in treatment, but the second he comes home he heads right over to the
local marijuana dealers home.
A lot is asked of us parents, but we can meet the challenge!

The recommendations in this pamphlet add up to a stiff set of demands on parents. But there is
nothing in this pamphlet, or about being a parent in general, that cannot be approached through
careful thought and attention to our children, ourselves, and other people.
Raising children does not require perfection. It requires the willingness to jump in, even though
jumping in means that well make mistakes. We must believe that mistakes can provide useful
experiences that will improve us and our children as people. We must have enough confidence in

ourselves and our children to take risks, and enough strength to change course if we are
dissatisfied.
When we recognize the true dangers in a situation and proceed with our eyes open, we create a
cautious but optimistic map that our children can follow. This map can help our kids discover
their own ability to face the challenges of life. As parents, we must make our children partners
while still keeping the final say. In this way, we accept responsibility for being parents while
helping our children accept responsibility for themselves. This must be our ultimate goal.