HOW TO TEACH KIDS TO 'SAY NO'

Talk to enough experts about drug-taking and drinking among teens now, and
pretty soon a picture will emerge.

It's not a pretty picture, they agree. But all parents need to see it, and
this is generally what it looks like:

Your child will likely face offers to drink or to try drugs much sooner
than you did.

Many of the drugs will be much stronger than the ones you might have tried.

And, those drugs will be easier to get, for a variety of reasons.

The fact that the local Yellow Pages has some two dozen addiction recovery
listings (many featuring the words "teen," "adolescent," "family" or
"school" ) attests to how pervasive the problem has become.

But in trying to grapple with the issue, modern parents face several
hurdles that parents a generation ago did not.

Society is more morally flexible than ever.

Many parents still "get high" in some form (and either think their kids
don't know, or believe that teen experimentation is normal and OK).

In addition, many parents who dabbled in drinking and drugs as teens, but
stopped, now fear being labeled as hypocrites and dismissed by their teens.

Under such circumstances, how do you teach your teens to "Just Say No" ?

While the addictions community regularly debates exactly what keeps a child
from taking that first sip or hit -- or becoming an addict -- there are a
few basics that most specialists agree on.

You have to talk with your children starting no later than late elementary
school.

You have to talk to them often.

You have to be honest (but not soul-baring) about your own past use.

And you have to maintain a zero-tolerance policy.

"Even with hard-core drug addicts, the only thing I've ever seen turn them
around is the family's love, and consistency in boundary-setting," says
Robert Tacco, a family therapist who specializes in chemical dependency
issues at Adolescent and Family Resources Inc. in Brighton.

Where to begin?

# Start by accepting that every child, including yours, is going to come
face-to-face with the issue.

"I think parents are still failing to talk about it, and we can tell
because they're so surprised when their kid is brought in for drug or
alcohol issues," says Dr. Lynn Cimpello, who often treats evening and
weekend pediatric emergencies at Strong Memorial Hospital.

Alcohol poisoning and binge drinking emergencies often illustrate this, she
says.

"About 15 to 20 percent (of parents) tell us, 'We know there's been a
problem,' or 'We've been trying to get him help,' but the rest are totally
unaware until the kid's brought in."

# Realize that multiple resources exist to help you. While many older
parents remain in denial about how quickly booze and drugs enter their
kids' lives, young baby boomer and Gen-X parents are actively dealing with
this issue as their children approach late grade school and middle school.

"Look at the change in the Partnership for Drug Free America TV ads," says
William K. Fulton, executive director of Delphi Drug and Alcohol Council.

"It's all about how do you talk to your kids about this. There's one where
the mother is ranting about drugs and it turns out she's doing it to a baby
in a high chair. She's practicing.

"There's one where the two parents are yelling at each other, and that's
practice, too. This is a lot different than cracking two eggs in a pan and
saying, 'Here's your brain on drugs,' which we all remember -- and which we
all laughed at."

# Examine your own substance use.

"There are still some in that (parental) age group who still use and who
are very successful," says Tacco.

"So when kids see Mom or Dad is a cop or a lawyer or a doctor and smokes up
once in a while, it sends a message. And a lot of times, parents think kids
don't know. Believe me, in families, there aren't a lot of secrets like
that. Kids know."

If you're serious about not having your kids try drinking and drugs, you
have to be willing to quit them, too.

"No question, if the parent's still using and the kid's aware, it has to
stop," says Tacco. "That right there is already a harmful consequence to
their development. If it's alcohol use, we have to know how much is being
used. If it's alcohol abuse or an illegal substance, there's no question it
has to stop, because then it starts going into hypocrisy."

# Know the culture in which your child is coming of age.

Technology has made it easy for kids to make, and meet up with, older
friends you might never know about.

The Internet makes ordering prescription drugs a snap, as long as someone
has a credit-card number.

And many kids are growing up in homes where parents still use, and don't
mind if their kids experiment.

"One of the biggest problems we have is that we were never dealing with
kids whose parents had a history of use. We had kids from alcoholic
families. But not kids whose parents had done pot, who'd done coke," says
Fulton. "In some school districts, (counselors) are now seeing children of
former clients."

# Be honest about your own use as a teen. But be careful.

"Kids often take license from disclosure," Tacco says. "Some parents feel
it's important to be brutally honest with their kids, and while they won't
talk about their own sex lives, they'll go into detail about their teenage
drug use, and kids can take that as permission to try it themselves."

Instead, he suggests, be selectively honest. Yes, you tried it -- and
here's what happened.

Then, get the conversation moved off your past and into your child's
present: "Why do you ask?" or "What brings this up?" or "Are you starting
to see a lot of drinking and drug-taking going on?"

# Don't assume the "scared straight" model, using grim photos or horrific
videos showing overdose or drunken-driving victims, will be a long-term
deterrent.

"It might work for that day. If you show it to them Friday and they're
alive on Sunday and you got them through 48 hours, I'm all for it,' says
Fulton.

"But for long-term effects, no. Because if they try (drugs) and find out
not one of them went blind, and not one of them is an addict -- yet -- they
think, OK, what was all that you were telling me?"

# Draw boundaries. Big, unmistakable ones.

Your kids want it, experts say.

"One of the biggest stumbling blocks we see for parents is problems setting
very clear expectations and boundaries, which seem to have gotten fuzzier
over the years," says Jennifer Faringer, director of the Health
Association's National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.

"The parent's job is to be the parent. Kids rely on the attitude and
message given by the parents about what behaviors will be tolerated around
the household."

That means setting clear rules for socializing: Where will you be? What's
the phone number? Who else will be there? This is the time you will be home
- -- and here are the consequences for having these rules violated.

Tacco says his grown daughters still remember his half-joking vow to "break
their legs" if they dabbled in drugs as teens.

The message they got, he says, wasn't a threat of imminent abuse but one of
no tolerance whatsoever for trying drugs, and what drugs could do to them.

"And they got that over and over and over," he says.