The use and abuse of drugs and alcohol is nothing to mess around with. This is a mountain and a situation you have to address immediately. If your child has been a good or average student, and all of a sudden in seventh to tenth grade you see her grades drop off the table, welcome to the world of marijuana. Smoking pot will rob a kid of motivation quicker than anything else. A lot of kids smoke pot—even teens you would call “good kids.” And here’s the kicker: once a teen starts smoking pot, his body starts craving that high more and more.
The same thing is true with alcohol use. So many teens start drinking beer at parties to be “cool” and one of the group. Then their bodies and minds start requiring the “relax mode” that alcohol puts them in. As one girl put it, “When I drink, I can escape who I am and be someone else. I’m not uptight anymore. I’m the life of the party, and everyone likes me.”
And that’s exactly why teens use drugs and alcohol:
1. To escape who they are or their life situation (whether at home, school, or both).
2. To be popular—part of the “in crowd”—and well liked.
But such stimulants are only a quick fix, not the answer to a teen’s unhappiness or insecurity. Even worse, drug and alcoholuse becomes addicting. Just ask anyone in AA who has struggled for years to come out of addiction.
If you find out (or even suspect) your child is drinking or using drugs, ask yourself these important questions:
1. Where is my child getting the money for alcohol and drugs? Perhaps he’s getting it from you, through his allowance or the extra money he begs from you. If so, now’s the time to cut off the supply, since it’s only aiding his habit. For a while he may be able to bum money off his friends, but that won’t last long.
2. Do my children know if I smoke pot or do any other drugs? If they do, they’re going to see your use of drugs as the green light that they can party with their friends, smoke pot, shoot up, snort this or that—whatever comes. By using drugs yourself, you’re giving your child blind permission to do so too.
This kind of story happens in homes across America every day. It happened to Danelle, as her story shows:
“My dad had a Scotch every day when he came home from work, and then he had another one after dinner,” Danelle told me. “So I grew up thinking that’s just what you did when you were an adult. When I turned 11, I wanted to be just like my dad. Everybody seemed to like him because he was fun to be around . . . at least when he was around. So I started taking sips from his Scotch bottle when I got home from school. I’d sneak it from his den liquor cabinet while my mom was making dinner. I just filled it up a little with water so nobody would know I was doing it.”
Danelle continued doing so until she became an alcoholic at age 13. It wasn’t until she was 15, when she was caught with older friends at a bar, that her family even found out she drank. Her mother was shocked, her father was embarrassed (he was, after all, on the board of their church), and Danelle ended up needing to go to a rehab facility to dry out.
Even more, she discovered at the rehab center that she was pregnant. She didn’t know who the father was because she’d had an encounter with him when she was drunk.
The baby was born premature with fetal alcohol syndrome. A doctor and his wife, who knew the complications that could result from drinking while pregnant, ended up adopting the baby and footing the medical bills. Danelle lost a year of high school due to complications with the pregnancy and her resulting depression. She began her junior year in a different high school so she could start fresh and make new friends.
Today Danelle is in her late twenties and works at a center for alcohol-addicted teens (some of whom are also pregnant). “I know where they’ve been, and I want to see them get to a good place too. I’m a totally different person now because my parents showed me tough love. But the biggest change of all was in my father. He had to own up to his own drinking problem and insecurities, and that has really changed our relationship. When I came home from rehab, he actually cried and told me he’d failed me, my mom, and my older brother. And then he hugged me—the first real hug I can remember. He cried too when my baby was adopted, but he told me he was proud of me for doing the right thing.”
If you find out your child is using drugs or abusing alcohol, now is the time for tough love . . . to give your child a future. Get your child some counseling. Get her into a rehab program. Don’t wait. Far too many teens have overdosed or killed themselves and others by drunk driving. Your child’s life is too precious to take chances.
Earrings
“My daughter is 8 and is dying to get her ears pierced. But I don’t think she’s quite ready for them . . . the pain or the responsibility.”
“My son showed up at the dinner table with a surprise—he got his ear pierced. His mom just about dropped the mashed potatoes when she saw it. He and his buddies did it together on a dare at the mall.”
Whether or not to allow your child to have pierced ears is an area where you as a parent simply need good judgment. Would you want your 9-year-old son to have an earring? Probably not. But if my son at age 15 or 16 wanted to have an earring, I guess I’d let him. It would be a molehill in life. Of course, I’d want to talk to my son about it first, since usually the reason children or teens want to get their ears pierced is because all their friends are doing it.
“But do you really want to be like everyone else?” is a good question to ask.
Frankly, I don’t, because when I look at “everyone else,” I don’t always like what I see. Once I went to a basketball game where everyone wore red. You know what I wore? A white T-shirt. I’ve done major presentations at black-tie events and fund-raisers—and I wore a Hawaiian shirt. Imagine—the only person in the place without a black tie, and I’m the speaker! When our teenage son, Kevin, was talking about getting an earring, I decided to see just how serious he was. So I raided my wife’s earring collection and showed up with an earring at the dinner table. Kevin’s desire for an earring ended very quickly when I declared that I was also going to enjoy wearing one.
It all comes down to this: are you going to major on molehills or save your big guns for the mountains? If your teenage son is going for a job interview at a more conservative workplace and discovers that he won’t get the job because he has an earring, that earring you hate may just disappear for the next job interview (ditto for your daughter who has decided she has to have 3 piercings in both ears).
Eating (in High Chairs and at Restaurants)
I just returned from having lunch with my 3-year-old grandson, Conner, and my 18-month-old granddaughter, Adeline. Let me just say up front that it’s nearly impossible to enjoy a lunch or get a word in edgewise when you take 2 toddlers out to a restaurant. As my daughter Krissy told me, “Dad, you did your good deed for the week.”
“I enjoyed this so much,” I told her, “that I’ll have to do it again . . . in a year.”
And we both laughed.
Since I have 5 children and now have grandchildren, I identify with moms in the throes of caring for little ones. When you’re a mom, your goal is sometimes simply to get through the day. Asking young children to sit for a period of time—or to sit at all—is a pretty tall task (especially for certain personality types). Every mom needs to know where her child’s threshold for sitting is. Pushing it past those boundaries (i.e., doing an hour lunch with girlfriends at a restaurant) is most likely asking for trouble. Getting takeout and going to a park where your children can run is probably a better option. And your girlfriends will thank you.
Young children especially take a very short time to eat (unless it’s turned into a battle and their battle plan is to keep Mom or Dad’s attention by dawdling). When they’re done, they’re done. So if you don’t quickly read the message “Hey, I’m done with all this” in your child’s eyes, he will do two very natural things:
1. Quickly swipe all his remaining food onto the floor. (Watching it fall and splatter is such entertainment. So is watching Mom or
Dad come running! It doesn’t matter whether it’s at home or in a restaurant. Your toddler isn’t embarrassed at all by such behavior. He thinks it’s fun.)
2. Remove the tray to the best of his ability and begin to climb out of his high chair.
So what can you do? First of all, realize that children are naturally noisy. Those long dinners where you chatted about the future, held each other’s hands, and gazed into each other’s eyes are over (except for your date nights). Life has changed.
Second, doing what comes naturally isn’t “naughty” to a child. Hey, the 12-month-old thinks, when I throw my Cheerios off my high chair, Mom comes running. Let’s see how many times she’ll do that.
Third, we ask too much of children, depending on their age, when we make them sit for long periods in chairs or high chairs. So many parents end up sticking their young children in high chairs and feeding them snacks before dinner, just so they can get dinner on the table for everyone else. That doesn’t work. By the time you have dinner made, those toddlers are too full of snacks to eat a real dinner and too itchy to sit any longer in that uncomfortable high chair.
So what’s the answer? Feed your children, as much as possible, when you eat, or at least the same food that you eat (even if mushed up and served in installments as you cook it). Also, teach your child something very important: once they get down from that high chair, the meal is over. That means no coming back to the table for another bite. The same holds true for home as for a restaurant.
If you teach your young children this, they will sit for as long as they are hungry and then disappear from the dinner table, leaving you to get a word in edgewise with your spouse or other children.
Of course, this works very well at home, where your child has toys to play with, but is more difficult at a restaurant. That’s why, when the children are small, for a while you may want to come up with more creative options than the typical restaurant outing. You’ll be happier, your child will be happier, and the patrons of the restaurant you didn’t go to will thank you.
Fears/Fearfulness
It happens in every home, including yours. You sigh with relief after getting the kids in bed . . . but 5 minutes later you see big, expressive eyes peering at you from around the corner. It’s your youngest child.
“What are you doing up?” you ask in your sternest voice.
“I’m afraid of the dark,” the little voice quivers.
But what’s really going on?
Remember, kids are unionized. And if you have more than one child, your children have sent the youngest as an advance scout—as the scapegoat. I know all about that because when I was young, my older brother and sister used to con me into going back out to the living room after we were supposed to be in bed. I was the guinea pig . . . or the sacrifice, whichever way you want to look at it. If they wanted Wheaties cereal for a snack, they’d send me. Why send the youngest out to do the dirty work? As far as siblings are concerned, if he gets killed, who cares? They don’t like him anyway.
The truth is, research shows that the child less likely to be punished is the baby of the family. He gets away with murder with Mom and Dad. Your children instinctively know this. They’re smart. So the 11-year-old and the 9-year-old tell the 4-year-old to go out there. And the 4-year-old’s dumb enough to do it. Once the 4-year-old is out there and successfully negotiating a deal with you, two more shadows will appear in the hallway.
“What are you two doing out of bed?”
you bark.
“Corey’s out of bed,” they say.
And before long you have a nighttime party going on when it’s your rest time.
Go back to the purposive nature of the fear. What’s really going on with the fear of the dark, things that go bump in the night, and monsters under the bed?
Your child wants you to come into that room. He wants your presence. And that fear gives him a reason to cry, scream, and demand your presence with him. So what can you do?
You can go into that room and reassure the child there are no monsters in the house. But as soon as you step into that room, your battle is lost. So try this: at bedtime, put any kind of squirt bottle next to your child’s bed. Put water and a bit of food dye in it and say, “Honey, are you in luck! Tonight I’ve got dragon repellent right here! One squirt, and all the monsters are gone from the area.”
The idea is to teach the child how to control his fears.
I remember that as a child when I closed my eyes, I could see little colored dots. I used to call them bugs, and I used to tell my mom and dad, “I see bugs! I see bugs!” and they’d come into the room, night after night, and calm me down. But what was the purposive nature of my behavior? To get to see Mom and Dad just one more time before I went to sleep.
If you’re aware of this, you’ll come up with creative solutions like the squirt bottle before your child is tucked in bed.
Fighting in the Car
“I told you to stop that . . . right now!”
“If you don’t stop poking your brother, I’ll . . .”
“Just wait until we get home. . . .”
Then there’s the parental arm flailing from the driver’s or passenger’s seat into the backseat. . . .
Why is it that children fight most often in the car? It’s because they’re in a contained space, and they’re jockeying for position to see who is most dominant among the herd—and even to see how they can dominate you. It’s fascinating how children who are powerful kids select their areas to try to dominate you. Usually it’s places where you’re a fish in a barrel (like driving a car) and there’s no hope of escape.
So what do you do? When siblings are going after each other in the back of the car and you’re driving, it can really distract you. Yelling at them and looking in the mirror can distract you even more. Threatening them accomplishes no purpose. They know:
1. You don’t mean it.
2. You won’t carry it out. Many parents say, “If you don’t settle down, we won’t get this or go there.” But usually those are just idle threats. With a history of those kinds of threats and warnings, no child will pay attention to what you say.
3. You can’t reach them (other than the ridiculous flailing arm that only makes you angrier).
So try this first: turn up the music on the rear speakers. Part of their fun is knowing you’re overhearing the skirmish. They’re waiting for you to step in and settle it. That’s part of their unionized plan.
If turning up the music doesn’t work and they continue to bicker, calmly pull over the car and stop. Get out of the car, stretch a little, check your tires, open your trunk. If you are going somewhere your children want to be, and they end up getting there late, all the better. Take your time outside that car.
When you get back in the car, say something like, “Is it safe for Mom to drive now?”
Try this once and it’s usually enough to stop the bickering. If you’ve been a paper tiger parent up to this point, though, they may need another dose.
And guess what? Your heart rate hasn’t gone up either. You’ve used the principle of “B doesn’t happen until A is completed.” Those children are not arriving at their destination until their bickering is dealt with.
Forgetfulness
“But I just forgot!”
Kids will forget. Everyone does. They’ll forget to do homework; they’ll forget to bring their clarinet home from school. But don’t accept excuses. It only makes the weak weaker.
If 12-year-old Janie forgets her clarinet, the best thing to do is tell her, “Honey, go back to school and get your clarinet. You need it.” If you live in a small town or a safe neighborhood and she has to walk half a mile back to school, so be it. If not, you may have to drive her back to school to get it. The point is, don’t let forgettingbe an excuse for not getting the job done. Your child needs to learn to be accountable for doing what she says she’ll do. Don’t reward forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness is not an excuse. The only people who gain from it
are credit card companies. They make an easy fortune when you’re late with a payment because you forget. They just add a $39 (or more) late fee on your credit card and rack up the percentages.
Going on Overnights
It’s so tempting to allow your child to grow up quickly. And that includes overnights. But overnights should be rare, especially when your children are young. Children need to be home, and today’s kids are home less and less. It’s part and parcel of being a child today, it seems, that by age 3 you have to be in gymnastics, and by 5 you’re playing soccer, in swim club, in ballet, etc. That means your children have greater exposure to a wider number of people than ever before.
How well do you really know the family that your child would be staying with? There’s a difference between having your 3-year-old at Grandma and Grandpa’s for the night (but then, many 3-yearolds aren’t even ready for that, since they would miss Mommy too much) and letting your 7-year-old stay at his Little League friend’s house overnight. Do you know, for sure, that there is no pedophile in that home? I know that’s blunt, but that’s our world today. The stakes are very high. And here’s the kicker: if a child is sexually abused, the highest probability is that the abuser will be a family member.
That means today’s parents can’t afford not to be watchful of their children. So questions you should ask as you consider an overnight are:
1. Has your child been away from home before? If not, will this be a good first experience in a safe environment?
2. Will your child miss Mommy?
3. Is your child a bed-wetter?
4. How well do you know the people your child would be staying with?
For all of these reasons, overnights were very rare in the Leman home. We allowed our daughter Lauren to have a few friends over when she was in junior high. But then we made it a strict policy that Sande drove the girls home (not me, as a guy).