HAVE YOU TALKED TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT DRUGS YET?

If it hasn't happened yet, one day or night soon it will. Your child,
just like my own, will be offered drugs.

Maybe it's the first time he or she has been offered a chance to get
high. Maybe it's just the first time this weekend. Sometimes, our kids
have to decide several times a day whether they want to share a joint,
sniff some heroin or pop some Ecstasy.

Most kids have to start making these decisions between the age of 13
and 14. Each and every time the choice of what to do is theirs, and no
matter where you live, the problem is probably closer to your child
than you think.

Consider: if you drive a carpool of five kids to soccer practice, to dance
class or even just home from school, odds are one of the kids in the car has
smoked a joint in the past 30 days.

As parents, we have three options for dealing with this reality.

One, we can keep telling ourselves our kids couldn't possibly be
exposed to drugs. Two, we can accept that our children will be exposed
to drugs and just hope for the best. Or three, we can accept that our
children will be exposed to drugs and do something about it.

What to do is a tough question, and many of us aren't sure we can do
anything. One out of three parents in a recent Partnership for a
Drug-Free America study said they believe what they say will have
little influence on whether their child tries marijuana, and that
there's really nothing they can do to help the drug problem.

But remember, the drug problem isn't one massive battle - it's
thousands of little ones. We can make a difference just by getting and
staying involved in our kids' lives.

Even when they shrug their shoulders, roll their eyes or simply do
their best to make it seem like they're ignoring us, our kids are
listening to what we have to say.

We can tell them the reasons we don't want them to do drugs. We can
tell them the risks. We can even just tell them we love them and care
about what happens to them.

We can talk to them about a story, in this paper or on the local
television news, about drugs. We can ask them what's happening at
school, ask them what they think - and really listen to what they have
to say. If they have questions about drugs, we can answer them as
openly and honestly as we can.

These are things we can do tonight, tomorrow in the car, next weekend
on the way to the mall - but keep in mind, talking to our kids about
drugs can't be a one-time thing. We need to build true relationships
with our kids.

This is something more parents are doing. The 1999 partnership's
Attitude Tracking Study found more parents are talking with their
children about drugs more often, more thoroughly and more specifically
- - and they are having an impact: teen attitudes about drugs are
changing for the better and teen drug use is leveling off or declining
for the first time in years.

Many things are driving these changes, but when you consider that kids
who learn a lot about the risks of drugs at home are up to 50% less
likely to try drugs - and that in 1999, the number of kids who said
they had learned a lot about the risks of drugs at home climbed
significantly - it's impossible to discount the impact parents are
having.

Does building stronger relationships with our kids ensure that they
won't use drugs? Unfortunately, as in all of life, there are no
guarantees. Still, it is within our power to tilt the odds.

Whether to take drugs is up to our kids. Talking to them in hopes that
they'll make the right decision? That's up to us.