Substance abuse no longer has the hidden, down-the-back-alley aura it once had. The use of tobacco, alcohol and marijuana have become so commonplace, especially among teens, that the the teen who hasn't sampled and experimented is rare. This isn't suggesting or condoning the experimentation, it's recognizing that most parents are dealing with teens who have or are going to experiement. Our job as fathers is to see our chldren through this risk the best way we can.
Right now it's known that our job as dads is to be there. Children growing up in single-parent households are at a significantly increased risk for drug abuse as teenagers.
Anyone who's raised a teenager knows the sense of vulnerability that comes with turning them loose to run with the crowd. No matter how good a father you are, there are no guarantees your child won't take chances you disapprove of. What we hope to accomplish as nurturing fathers is giving them a strong, abiding sense of our love, our values, and the tools to survive their mistakes. Included in those tools is a trust in us as a man they can trust with their mistakes.
All teens are naturally going to stretch the rules of their culture. Many are going to reach into the taboos of drugs and alcohol to prove their mettle and disdain for the "ignorant" adults plodding in front of them along life's highway. Reducing the risk attached to this inevitable rule-stretching is one of our developmental challenges as fathers.
Breaking the rules, stretching the boundaries, inventing new ways of doing the old things...these are all normal. What isn't normal is the prolonged and repeated use of substances to numb the psyche. While we all need escape and respite, when drugs and alcohol become the habitual and/or only way of recentering, then often growth and development are temporarily stopped. It's our role as fathers to see to it that our children continue to seek their lives in their own ways with our support and guidance.
Acceptance by dad and acceptance of self go hand in hand. Any father who is capable of paying a lot of attention to his children without trying to totally steer their lives, and can at the same time be accepting of the child sends a strong message into his child's psyche...."You are loved, cared for, approved of."
One of the prime causes of continued substance abuse can be a sense of rejection by dad. A father's acceptance is critical to one's sense of self. Cold, removed, dismissive or non-communicative fathers teach their children to feel less than important. Any father whose teen s on the fast track for substance abuse should be clear with his child about 1) how important the child is to him, 2) how inappropriate the substances are, and 3) that as a dad he is there to help.
The question of how to help and what to do depend on what's going on in your teen's life. Are they using, thinking about it, running with "bad" friends, already in trouble? It also depends on your current relatioinship. Is there trust? anger? silence? communication? Knowing where you are as a father is the first step in dealing with the drug and alchohol hurdle.
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