Important Conversations

There are a million lessons I have learned that I wish I could transfer to my children so that they won’t have to face the same perils that I did – things that might keep them safe and allow them to bypass danger and heartache. Unfortunately, we cannot do this and as much as we might wish they did, “just say no” and other autocratic messages don’t work either - we aren't raising automatons, we are raising intelligent free-thinkers who have ready access to information, which means that we have to be prepared to deliver it first.

I’ve heard parents talking about being so afraid of the world we live in that they don’t want to let their children out of the house. This way of responding to the world shocks me, as it punishes our children and breeds an atmosphere of fear.

When our kids are little we teach them right from wrong - no hitting, no swearing, be nice to others, act like a good friend in order to have good friends. These are all important life lessons which we, as parents, don’t shy away from.

The older our kids get, however, the harder it is for us to have these critical conversations. We stop concentrating on the necessity of these fact based life lessons and start worrying about the discomfort we feel, and the discomfort our children will feel if we bring up body functions, peer interactions, and drugs and alcohol.

We need to recognize that the fact that these conversations make us nervous is really an indicator of how critical they are to have – not only so that our kids will understand the facts, but also so that we demystify the topics, we bring them out into the open so that they stop being uncomfortable for us and for our children.

And we can’t just have the conversations once, we need to have them regularly – to remind our children that we are watchful, present, and interested in what is happening in their lives as well as to reduce the discomfort that comes along with these difficult discussions.

This is true in any community, no matter how safe we may want to believe we are – and I believe that in some cases the safer the community feels the more we have to be alert. Parents are insulated from danger, so we assume our kids are, too. My husband and I learned how true this was when we found out that our daughter was introduced to drugs and alcohol at thirteen years old, and it was driven home years later when we lost her.

I often think about the things I wish I would have done differently and those are the most important things to share:

• I wish I would never have yelled at my daughter during her confessions to me. I feel like she would have been more open to talking to me and looking for help if I would have managed to give her a safe place to ask for help. By reacting emotionally, I made my feelings of betrayal more important than her needs and this resulted in a barrier between us that made it harder to get her the help she needed, and made her less likely to reach out to me.

• I wish I would have talked to her earlier about drugs and alcohol – even though I had those conversations with her, I think we started too late – thinking she was still too young and innocent even though she’d already been exposed to drugs and alcohol in middle school. Once I did start talking to her, I should have kept the conversations going, instead I felt safe, the conversation checked off the list, and I moved on to other things. This was a huge mistake that I pay for every day.

• I wish I would have taken stock of all of the changes that came about after she started using. Her clothes, friends, the books she read and shows she wanted to watch, an obsession with fitness and her appearance. There were a multitude of changes which might have been nothing independently but I will never stop wondering what I could have done to help her if I would have added them all together.

• Most importantly, none of the things I now see as signs were on any list of what to look out for if you are watching for drinking, drugs, partying or other dangerous behavior. We know our kids, and we have to pay attention and look at what is happening in our homes and with our children all the time, with love and attention – we can’t take comfort in a safe neighborhood or in some list that an expert who has never met our child gives us, because it is bound to be missing something, and that thing could be the clue for your particular child. Instead, take confidence in what you teach your child and what you know about them. It might save their lives.

As parents, our only logical option is to arm our children with information, strategies, and an open and honest environment so that they can make informed and brave choices, ask questions, and find answers without fear of embarrassment or retribution. This is our most fundamental responsibility, to prepare our kids for success and independence in a world that isn't pure and perfectly safe by education and communication.