TEST DOING DRUGS WITH
PAUL DILLON

"Every conversation I have with my 15 year-old at the moment ends in a fight! Apparently I don't understand anything about the world, my rules are completely different to every other parent's and, as I'm usually told as the door slams, I just want to ruin her life!" As tempting as it must be sometimes to just turn and walk away and think this is just all too hard when this kind of thing happens, it is incredibly important that parents continue to try and work hard to maintain a dialogue with their son or daughter during the teen years. I've just pulled this quote out of one of many emails I've had over the years  - I can't tell you how many times I've been told by mums and dads that their wonderful, communicative and co-operative teen went up to bed one night and was somehow replaced by aliens with a 'pod person' - an adolescent that they now simply don't recognize! If their child did actually decide to converse it was usually to argue...

Alcohol and sport are bound together tightly in this country and, to be honest, it doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. I remember going to a conference many years ago and hearing from an expert in the area that it took 25 years from the day Bob Hawke announced that tobacco sponsorship of sport would end to the day it finally did, but if a Prime Minister did the same thing around alcohol today, it could take close to 40 years to disentangle the two! Pretty amazing stuff but not really surprising ... Participation in sport is regarded as a protective factor for young people when it comes to alcohol and other drugs. It's a healthy activity, keeps them busy and 'off the streets', as well as offering them a sense of 'connectedness', particularly when it comes to team sports. It is also a way of parents maintaining a positive relationship with their child - e.g., driving them to training and to the actual sporting events, showing an interest in w...

One of my major messages to parents this year has been the importance of understanding why young people do the things they do during adolescence. You can sit with your teen, carefully explaining your rules and boundaries and tell them what will happen should those rules be broken and they may still walk away and, within minutes, do the 'wrong thing'. It is at this point that you may start to question your parenting and also the intelligence of your teen ... Put simply, teens make 'dumb choices' because of their developing brain. The adolescent brain is far less developed than we once thought, with male brains developing much later than females (no surprise there!). When we make decisions as an adult, we rely on parts of the brain that are amongst the last to fully develop, i.e., the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and promotor cortex. These sections deal with reasoned thinking and judgment, as well as learning and memory (remembering past experiences) and a range of o...

The evidence is pretty clear that if you want to do your very best to keep your child safe through the teen years there is a simple parenting formula to follow: know where your child is know who they're with, and know when they'll be home This involves a lot of work. It takes time and energy to check up on what your teen has told you, calling other parents to find out whether they're going where they say they're going and making sure they do what they say they're going to ... but if that's what it takes to ensure your child comes home in one piece, I'm pretty sure most would agree it's worth the effort! As I say in my parent sessions, sometimes when I end my talks with these three simple tips I can see some people in the audience who look like I have just stabbed them in the heart. When I have approached them afterwards and asked them what the problem was (because there was so a problem!), they turn around and say "But if I did those things and chec...

A friend of mine recently contacted me to let me know that her Year 10 child had really enjoyed the talk I had given her. This wonderful mother had been 'building me up' for years and, finally, her daughter was at the age when she was going to hear what all the excitement was about! Not surprisingly, her teen's expectations were high but according to her mum her 15 year-old came home more than happy with what she had heard and the family had a great conversation about the talk and the messages presented. Unfortunately the next part of the conversation was not so positive ... She and I have spoken a number of times about the importance of parental monitoring and knowing where your child is, who they're with and when they'll be home. She and her partner have attended a number of my parent sessions and I have warned her about the change in parent behaviour she was likely to see when children hit those teen years and started to be ...

During the week I met a Year 11 girl who wanted to apologise to me for something that had happened to her only a few weeks after I had presented to her and her classmates last year. She had gone to a small gathering with a group of friends, including her boyfriend (who had also heard me speak at another school), was planning on drinking but certainly not getting drunk, and things just went pear-shaped. She ended up being taken to hospital after vomiting for a number of hours, being placed on life-support and was now totally mortified after causing her friends, boyfriend and family so much distress due to her actions. So why did she want to apologise to me? I am paraphrasing but this is essentially what she said: "I have no idea why I didn't listen to you. I loved your talk and I listened to everything you said. You told us all the things we should do if we were planning on drinking alcohol, all the things to keep us safer and I didn't do any of them. I...

Last year I posted a Facebook entry about an incident at a school I had recently visited ... it went something like this:   Just have to share ... Went to a school recently and met with the Year 10 Co-ordinator who appeared very flustered. It was obvious that something had upset her. When I asked her if she was okay she told me about a phone call she had just received and it totally floored me ... Apparently she had given one of her Year 10s a detention and within minutes the girl's mother called her to request if she could do the detention for her!!! Can you believe it? What is wrong with some of these parents? At the time I was completely unaware of how often this actually goes on in schools. Of course, this is an extreme case, a mother actually asking to do her daughter's detention for her is highly unusual (although according to principals and teachers across the country it certainly happens more than you would think!), but parents responding to their child's calls fo...