[Thanks to Patti for involuntarily giving me the idea.]
The best time to talk to your kids about drugs is before they start taking them. The second best time is after they start taking them. The WORST time to talk to your kids about drugs is when they’ve JUST taken them. They tend to focus less…
Pick the right place to talk to your kids about drugs. Wrong places include, the ball pit at their third birthday party, Antarctica and their death bed. Maybe it would be best to bring it up at the ol’ fishin’ hole… although it need not be a hole; any body of water that might conceivably have fish will do…
You should start the talk with “Drugs are bad”, just in case you accidentally tell them that drugs are good during your discussion.
If there are old photos of you setting an ROTC building on fire during a student riot, telling your child that you never used drugs probably won’t fly. Best to admit to about twenty-five percent of your earlier drug use. Even that should impress the child. It would probably impress just about anyone.
Know your child: If you tell your child that drugs will cause them to lose their enthusiasm for their school work, be sure they currently have enthusiasm for their school work.
Know your child’s peers: Telling your child that their peers who want them to do drugs are not their friends is less than believable when it turns out one of them took a bullet for your child. THESE ARE THE KINDS OF THINGS A PARENT SHOULD KNOW!!!
Tell your kids that drugs do not make you cool. Avoid mentioning their pot-smoking uncle who rides a Harley and lives in a trailer on the beach with two surfer girls. They might get confused as to what the word “cool” actually means. So might you.
If you’ve just been convicted of DUI, you might want to wait six weeks before telling your child not to use drugs.
Every story about your drug use must involve horrible degradation: Example? So anyway, Scabby and I are trippin’ balls and these two great looking chicks come up to us and ask if we’ve heard the newest Neil Young album. We go back to their place and just… I… ummm… peed my pants and everyone laughed at me?
If it turns out that your teenager has had a lot more experience with drugs than you ever did, it is still irresponsible to ask them if they could score you a bag of weed.
Potatoes and the Promise of More Potatoes 
Very sound advice. Especially the one about cool Uncle Jimmy with his Harley and entourage. Best not to bring him up at all, I’ve found 😂
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Oh the hilarious irony that I – of all people – was the inspiration for this post will NOT be lost on my family 😂😂😂 When my kids were in their late teens, we were talking about drug use in high school when I nonchalantly (but very seriously) mentioned “I was very lucky: there were no drugs in my high school.” Both my kids looked at me with a Oh-mom-you-are-sweet-but-SO-misguided look. My husband burst out laughing and said, “Patti, your high school was the HUB for drug trafficking in the entire PROVINCE!!!” 😂😂😂
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Teenagers have a way of drilling through our BS while simultaneously ignoring their own. My oldest lived in Mexico for four months and, while there, tried every drug he could. I was flattered that he felt comfortable telling me about his adventures and, at the same time, freaking out about what he did while he was there.
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Oh SOME things are better found out YEARS after the fact…😳😳😳 Kind of cool that he trusted you though…I’ll just bet THAT caused you a sleepless night or two…
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Still does, Patti…
Any other ideas for writing topics?
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I think you got this the wrong way round – my kids tell me about drugs 😊
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Yeah… so do mine… And, they are VERY condescending about it…
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