Say The Right Thing First

“How do I find the right words to explain ______ to my ____ -year-old?”

The question comes up frequently, on parenting lists, in groups, at events. Implied in this question is, often, “How do I fit the words and concepts into my child's head so s/he will know everything necessary on the subject at 20 without overwhelming them now or leaving anything out?”

My short answer is 'you don't.'

The slightly longer answer is 'you don't all at once.'

Amongst my friends and family we have what apparently is quite a unique conversational style. As far as I can tell it's uncommon to revisit a conversation that's been had already-- for any reason--at a later date. I find this quite bizarre.

Many a topic-opener in conversations with a very long-time friend is 'remember we were talking about blah blah blah a few years/months/days/hours/minutes ago?' We restart conversations, kind of in the middle, as new information is discovered, new thoughts or ideas are formed or found out there in the world, or just because we're not satisfied with our understanding or expression of our thoughts on the subject.

Since this was a normal kind of conversation for my kids to be around for, whether or not they were listening, there was always a strong underlying reality in our world: the subject is not closed, no one has had the final word on the topic, and there are many reasons to re-visit the issue.

So, instead of feeling like I had to explain sex and death and taxes and drugs and etiquette and tact versus lying, or whatever, once and for all... I always knew the conversation was developing. Developing because the thumbnail answer any 3yo can absorb at a time isn't ever going to be the way the same child will comprehend the subject at 8 or 13 or 22 (or 48 or 77...) and that means the discussion continues more or less where it left off the next time there is some reason to talk about it.

Reasons for restarting a conversation:

• I saw in the news
• that movie we just watched
• a story book we are reading
• someone else was talking about it and mentioned a new way (to me) to think about it
• I stumbled upon new information online
• someone else was talking about it and said ______
• your friend is dealing with the same thing now
• another death in the social circle or celebrity media
• I was thinking about what you, I, or they said the last time we talked
• it seemed like the conversation ended abruptly because of some kind of interruption, and we aren't finished with it... so, as I was saying . . . .

Addiction and Choice

 

Recommended reading: Addiction, a disorder of choice, by Gene M. Heyman …

When we subject children to anti-drug propaganda* we may be taking for granted a few propositions that have not been established outside the ‘my pappy tol’ me so’ and ‘some dude in a pub said’ frames.

As Heyman’s thesis valiantly proves, addiction is absolutely a voluntary choice and is absolutely not a disease.

I’ll summarize the argument for the second claim first, because it’s so universally accepted today. If alcoholism, smoking, heavy drug use and oxycodone abuse were diseases, it would not be possible to ‘quit.’ Not with a change of attitude, not with rehab and not with meetings –all of which can and do end addiction in real life. More than 80% of heavy, chronic drug users quit on their own, by choice, most of them before they’re 30 (they also typically start at 18.) If the disease model made sense, then MS and diabetes could be ‘quit’ with the help of rehab or meetings, which is a ridiculous suggestion.

On to the voluntary choice aspect. Because a lot of the research on the subject tends to be done by economists, rather than mothers of 14-year-old boys, they often take it as read that people do not voluntarily choose self-destructive options. Anyone who has ever seen Jackass or its many imitators can snort at that idea. Clearly, people do, rather more often than most parents are comfortable, make choices that are not in the best interest of anyone, including themselves.

What’s going on?

It turns out that one other things economists get wrong is the frame in which the decisions are being made. Economists look at ‘market baskets’ –like a collection of possible spending choices for someone’s discretionary income, and see that overall people tend to make reasonably sensible choices: the ‘best interest’ model. Yet people have rationally pointed out that there are a great many people who are bankrupt –or being evicted for non-payment of rent, with big screen tvs and smartphones—that rather argues against the theory. The frame economists use, in Heyman’s terminology, is a global framework for decision making, and it does tend away from self-destructive and toward best interest. In drug use, this means that when someone frames the ‘will I use cocaine now?’ question in terms of ‘is this the best use of the next $150 and 4 hours of my time, considering my life goals?’ the answer is very, very different from a ‘local’ viewpoint.

The local view is ‘will I suffer through the craving now?’ In short-term decision-making, people will very often make self-destructive and even openly suicidal choices. In my post about lacking resources (Anti-Resourceful), I described one such devastating decision from my hometown. It is not irrational, from a ‘this moment’s pleasure’ standpoint, to use drugs instead of living through withdrawal.

So, to drug education

What do we tell the children, and what ‘works’ for avoiding hard core drug addiction?

As much as we don’t really believe it will work (hence the propaganda*) the answer is: The Truth.

The truth includes the fact that drugs use money, energy, resources and time in a way that does not get anyone closer to their personal goals in life. It’s uncommon knowledge, but you only get to spend this dollar, this bit of energy and this minute once.

The truth includes the fact that most people who experiment with drugs have their own very good reasons for not becoming habitual users, and it’s probably worth forty minutes of your life to figure out what yours are.

The truth includes the fact that there are many potentially-devastating side effects from most potent drugs, and in spite of the fact that the odds of ending up with any or all of them are really pretty small, without the drug use the odds are much nearer to zero.

The truth includes the fact that drug use has some real attractions that are genuinely hard to beat with anything else in the world, but none of those eradicate any of the other truths, including the fact that quitting is filled with suffering, often for a good long time.

The truth includes the fact that the majority of successful people look down on both the effects and the users of mood-altering substances particularly when the use can no longer be easily contained to non-productive hours, or when the urge to use spills out into criminal and anti-social behaviour. All people need the respect and goodwill of their friends and neighbours and while you’ll certainly be popular with your dealer/supplier and your buddy users, you will also certainly be restricting your social circle dramatically.

Do we have to get into dire threats and fictional statistics? I don’t think so. In fact, it would be ever so much better if we didn’t.

___

* Propaganda defined: amplified, simplified and vilified info-tainment designed to coerce underlings into believing whatever overlings have determined to be ‘best’ for them, regardless of any accuracy of statements…

Drug Education for Kids

There is a lot around these days... anti-smoking propaganda, 'Just Say No' campaigns, websites that may be excellent resources or condescending tripe aimed at kids, their parents or, let's be honest, other people who already agree with the position of those writing them. 

Recently, we received a web survey asking what the teenager in the house thought of some written materials aimed at teens. Oh, man. Where to start.

The overall tone of the material was, not surprisingly, "You are stupid, we know more than you and you will never understand this well enough to make sensible choices. Just do what we tell you to do, then you too can be 'cool.'"

Do you remember being a teenager and being faced with one of those adults? You know, the desperate ones who want to be seen to be cool by the teens? Arg! I swear, this material was written by them. You can smell the desperation, the need to be looked up to, right alongside the utter certainty that the adult is right and the teen is a zombie.

My kids, without any difficulty at all, have found out everything they want to know about drugs -- to the point that they can tell me all kinds of interesting things about words I'd never heard of, like ketamine. They found web sources and books and experts they believed in without having to resort to watching a 20 second commercial telling them what to think.

Have you seen the anti-smoking garbage as of late? My goodness, there are so many people dying of the effects of cigarette smoke -- people who haven't been in regular contact with it, or been smokers themselves, sometimes for decades are somehow crammed into the statistics of 'deaths from smoking' and 'deaths from second hand smoke' -- it's almost the #1 worldwide killer, probably above the most basic 'all people will die of something' cause. Sometimes the deranged side of my mind suspects that everyone who isn't shot or run over by a car, who is old enough to have ever been in a restaurant when smoking was allowed, dies of 'smoking-related illness.' It's a simple leap for a propaganda writer, after all... It goes kind of like this:

1. Tobacco, when burned, released 4000 chemicals (we'll talk about that piece of b.s. in a moment)


2. Several (between 6 and 200, depending on who you're listening to) are carcinogenic


3. THEREFORE anyone who has contracted cancer who was ever anywhere near tobacco burning has suffered from the effects of tobacco smoke AND


4. Heart disease and lung disease are both known to be correlated to smoking and second hand smoke


5. THEREFORE anyone with lung or heart disease who has ever been around burning tobacco is suffering from the effects of tobacco smoke


6. ERGO, anyone who dies after having contracted any of those (cancer, heart or lung diseases) can justifiably be said to have 'died from' the effects of tobacco smoke.

Ha ha ha ha. Oh sure.

Back to that '4000 chemicals' bit. I like this part, it's the funny part. 

Just for comparison's sake: anyone have any idea how many chemicals are released into the air when spicy battered fries are fried? Just for comparison, I mean...

No?

Hmm... perhaps 4000 chemicals released is a lot. Perhaps it is not. Who would know, with nothing at all to compare that isolated fact to? But 'chemicals' is a term that comprises... well, everything. Any compound (like gold-silver alloy) is a chemical. So are all vitamins, all minerals that aren't in their pure elemental form. Oh, and all elements. 

Some folks have managed to pollute the word 'chemicals' and really mean 'dangerous

compounds' but, since the 'list' of 'chemicals' released when tobacco burns includes both carbon and oxygen, the whole thing is just silly.

And that, unfortunately, is where almost all anti-drug stuff goes. In an atmosphere of fear, and lacking any trust in the people receiving the information, the anti-drug folks (including the anti-tobacco crowd) are provoked to propaganda.

What is the difference between propaganda and, say, marketing? Well, for one thing, anti-drug campaigns don't have to meet any standards for 'truth in advertising.' They can tell people that marijuana is a 'gateway' drug without having to restrict that statement to any part of reality or define the term. 

The research is clear: the vast majority of people who use marijuana (like tobacco and alcohol) do not ever progress into 'heavier' drugs, not even for experimentation. 

Gateway to nowhere, perhaps? Why is that term used? 

To invoke fear and to maintain ignorance.

Propaganda also has a level of invective that borders on the evangelical. It's not unhealthy to try pot -- it's immoral. It's not illegal for minors to use alcohol, it's an indication of someone's lack of character. Strong, upstanding people don't do these things, weak and amoral people do. And today, with the No Stank You and The Truth ads, people who smoke are ugly, stupid, socially-unacceptable and smell worse than decomposing flesh, apparently.

Propaganda is most obvious, though, when the lack of trust in the truth really shines through. The message is 'don't just tell them the truth -- amplify and adorn the truth with hyperbole and speculation, dire warnings of doom and death.' And lots of exclamation points!! 

Drugs kill. !!!!   

Tobacco kills everyone who ever uses it, and most of the people who are ever near it.    !!!!

When parents are attempting to influence their children's choices, particularly into their 20s, when they are truly 'free' of the supervision we rely on for the first 2 decades, what can they do that will actually work?

What can parents do that will actually work?
The truth. 

In fact, the truth is quite bad enough. 

Meth is highly addictive (true) and causes unsightly skin problems (true), is illegal (true), may be tampered with to make it even more addictive (also true) and distracts users from things that are important to them, like loved ones and feeling like a capable, responsible adult (all true). 

Does everyone who ever tries meth get hooked on it? No. 
Does everyone who gets hooked on it die or contract infectious diseases? Also no. 

Is it possible to have a clean source that is easy to get and won't risk the more revolting side effects? Well, yes, maybe, for a while if no one gets caught and the people involved don't have any difficulty getting the ingredients, and have no nefarious agenda in addition to supplying someone with drugs... That's an awful lot of conditions required to make a happy life hooked to something. Not impossible, but who has time or energy to spend that much time making sure tomorrow's lunch is that safe, much less something illicit that makes 'finding out' even harder?

Another 'fact' about drug use that the anti-campaigners like to gloss over is the self-esteem connection.

People who have high self-esteem may, certainly, try out drugs that are readily available to them (caffeine, alcohol and tobacco being way at the top of the list), but the people who are 'hooked instantly' like the drugs specifically for their ability to stop them from feeling the way they always do (or give them access to feelings they walled off long ago in a desperate attempt to stop feeling all the pain). 

Self-esteem is not about being high on oneself, narcissistic or boastful. High self-esteem is based on feeling capable of accomplishing many of the things necessary in life, and on feeling lovable and loved.

Parents can help with all of those things: 

• directing children toward doing things with their strengths
• making sure they know that their weaknesses don't need to be 'fixed' 
• weaknesses are no sign of being 'broken,' just an indication of where they're always (probably) going to need other people's assistance -- as is appropriate in a cooperative society.

Make sure children know they are loved... that alone goes a long way to ensuring they do not turn to drugs as a way to live with themselves...when they don't care much if they die.