All parents want their children They lived happily and were spared all the worst troubles. When we hear that an accident has happened to some child, we think that this will not happen to our child. When we see teenagers drinking alcohol on the street, we think that our child will never be in such company. But such a situation can happen in every family.
In most cases child tries alcohol for the first time in the company of his peers or an older group who already have experience in drinking alcohol. In such teenage groups, cruel methods of manipulation are developed, when it can be difficult to refuse such a group. A teenager who refuses to try alcohol will be considered a weakling, a loser, a mama's boy.
If your child collided With such a situation, he must be firm to the end, must be sure that he is right in refusing to drink. A teenager should be able to calmly refuse to drink alcohol while maintaining his authority in the company. The parents in the family should teach the child how to resist in such a situation and not give in to persuasion.
We need to teach baby clearly express your opinion at the very beginning, when the company is just about to start drinking. So that they don’t tell him later that they’ve already spent it and should have told him earlier. Teach your child to clearly answer: “I won’t do this!”, “I don’t like it!”. Don’t let him ingratiate himself, don’t make excuses, don’t apologize, explain to your child that he has the right to his position on an equal basis with others.
Let the reaction groups reacts calmly. If they try to convince him, let him constantly repeat several times that he doesn’t want to drink and won’t.
There is an opinion that parents should teach a child to drink at home, as some say - instill a culture of drinking. That is, in their opinion, it is better for him to pour it at his home table than to drink alcohol somewhere in the alley. This opinion is extremely wrong, as it instills in the child a loyal attitude towards alcohol. Parents are not drinking buddies, and a child should never be at an event where adults are drinking heavily and acting accordingly.
With your child We need to talk about the dangers of alcohol. And you don’t need to wait until the child reaches adulthood; you need to start talking about this at about 10-12 years old. Don’t be afraid to exaggerate, let the teenager think and accept your point of view. If you have alcoholic drinks at home, keep them out of reach.
Remember that for growing body alcohol is poison. For a teenager, even 0.25 liters of vodka (“chekushka”) is enough to cause death.
Even one-time use alcohol does not pass without a trace for a teenager. Alcohol has an extremely negative effect on the brain, liver, and pancreas. While drinking alcohol, teenagers' hearts work at the limit of their capabilities.
What parents should do reverse attention. First of all, not only the smell should be alarming, but also aggression, hysteria, sudden depression, desire for privacy or, conversely, excitement, giggling, a state of euphoria.
The arrival of a child at home drunk the state is shocking, but nevertheless, parents need to pull themselves together; the actions of the parents largely determine what choice their child will make.
If the child comes home drunk, try not to lose your composure, don’t make a scandal and don’t lecture, it’s simply useless in such a situation. Physical punishment will only cause protest and hidden resentment. The main thing is to calm the child down, bring him to his senses, make sure that nothing threatens his well-being, empty the stomach of the contents and put him to sleep.
When a teenager will sober up, you definitely need to talk to him about what happened. There is no need to joke and pretend that nothing serious happened. Treating him like a patient and releasing him from household duties is also wrong. He has committed a serious offense, and he cannot avoid a serious conversation. When talking, you should not get personal; talk only about the action - calmly and patiently. We need to figure out the reasons for what happened together.
You can think about whether your child is drinking if you notice strange behavior occurring. And you can definitely be sure of this by hearing the smell of alcohol from him. Or suddenly the child came home in such a state that it is simply impossible to mistake him for alcohol abuse.
But then the question becomes acute: where do they get this alcohol? Who sells to them anyway, if the sale of alcohol is prohibited? It turns out that purchasing a strong drink around the corner at a kiosk or in a store is not as problematic as it seems. All this is easily accessible and looks like this: during a break, a student has time to run for beer or something stronger. And parents can only worry about their child’s experiments with alcohol. After all, they have to worry about the health of their child, not knowing how to approach this issue more correctly, so as not to turn their offspring against themselves and get rid of the problem with small losses for the mental and general state.
Why does a child start drinking?
Statistics say that many children begin their first acquaintance with beer or wine at the age of ten, and two-thirds of teenagers drink alcoholic beverages regularly. A child at this age feels that he is not loved enough by his parents and is deprived of their attention, so in this way he fills his emptiness and loneliness.
It is possible that your child has already been offered alcohol several times and a positive decision could be the result of a stressful situation (a quarrel with parents, peers, unrequited love, etc.). And this helps him relax emotionally, be more relaxed and relieves him of his complexes. Moreover, cigarettes and alcohol are associated with the adult world, which one so wants to get closer to. But in fact, not all teenagers like the special taste of alcohol; for many, it causes a feeling of disgust. And, if the drink ended in poisoning, then he still will not refuse further offers to drink alcohol.
Talking about its harm will not change their attitude towards alcohol, because at this age life seems endless for them. Therefore, when an adult makes a remark, the teenager immediately asks himself a counter question: why is it possible for them, but forbidden to me? You need to adhere to the same rules that you demand from your child so that he feels equal rights.
What to do if your child drinks
After this, you can find out what happened, what prompted him, and if the child does not want to answer, do not insist.
In such situations, it is difficult to find arguments to get rid of this problem forever, but there are several rules:
Do not allow yourself to regularly drink alcoholic beverages in front of your child;
Do not allow your child to drink alcohol with adults;
Do not use moralizing phrases like “Don’t follow your father’s bad example”, this will only complicate communication;
Find out the reasons for your child's alcohol abuse.
And be sure to communicate with your child, give him your love and care, and maybe this will make him think about you at the moment when he is offered a drink. After all, only in this case will he be able to hear and listen to you, and this will help him avoid reckless actions in the future.
You notice that your child is not behaving as usual. You thought he smelled like alcohol. Or even he came home so drunk that it is impossible to make a mistake... Why did this happen and how to react correctly? What to do and what to do if a child drinks alcohol?
First reaction
If, after all, your child clearly drank too much and appeared in this form for the first time, do not be alarmed. He decided to show you his fortune - it means that he trusts you and counts on your understanding and help. Many of us, in a critical situation, lose our heads and attack the teenager with reproaches. Indeed, the first reaction of parents is to shout (“How dare you!”), start lecturing, or even declare a boycott. The other extreme is lamentations (“How bad you feel”), fussing around the child (“Let’s have a drink, eat to make it easier”), irony, jokes, attempts to cheer up. Both reactions are dangerous. In the first case, we increase the shame and guilt of the child, who already feels that he did something bad. And in the second, on the contrary, we show the teenager that his behavior is acceptable to us, nothing special happened - it’s nothing, an everyday matter. Try to refrain from any comments, act collectedly, calmly, and like an adult. Offer to take a shower, open the window, put him to bed. If your child drank too much with friends at the age of 14, this does not mean that he has started drinking. He just reached the age of mastering new roles and new relationships.
Subsequence
and trust
If a teenager comes home drunk, you need to talk to him, and it is better for parents to do this together, having previously agreed on their actions. The conversation should not begin on the same day, but immediately after the child sobers up. Start with the main thing - with what you felt when you saw your son or daughter: express your fear, grief, surprise, indignation (“When I saw you at the door yesterday, I was scared, because for the first time in my life I felt for you disgust"). At the same time, avoid judgmental words and assessments (“You disappointed me”), talk only about yourself. Then you can ask about what happened the day before: “What and how much did you drink?”; “Who else was with you yesterday, how are they feeling?”; “Did you like the taste of what you drank?”; “How come you couldn’t stop in time?” If the child does not want to answer your questions, do not insist; if he answers, react. For example, say that everything that happened was an experience anyway. But it seems to us that at the age of 13 it is too early to start drinking: the body is not yet adapted to such a load. At the same time, talking to teenagers exclusively about the dangers of alcohol, telling horror stories, instilling disgust and fear, is ineffective. Alcohol is part of our culture, and children are great at seeing not only the suffering that a drinker causes to themselves or others. They know (from their own experience and from others) that alcohol brings pleasure: it improves mood, causes unusual sensations, gives courage, facilitates communication. It is especially difficult to choose a course of action if someone in the family abuses alcohol. In this situation, it is not easy to find arguments that will be heard, and besides, parents who like to drink often do not feel the right to limit their child. But still there are a few rules. Do not allow your teen to drink with an adult. Avoid moralizing phrases like “Don’t follow your father’s example!” - they will only complicate communication. Explain how different drinks affect the body. Sometimes it may seem that the best solution is a strict ban. This technique never works and, most likely, will push the teenager to new experiments, which he will hide much more carefully. But it is imperative to figure out how and why it happened that the child got drunk, and whether he is going to repeat this experience. However, if the family has good relations, the ban may have an effect: the fear of losing the trust and love of his parents may make him think about his behavior. If a teenager has nothing to lose because his parents were never close to him, the ban will only strengthen the wall of mutual misunderstanding. It’s paradoxical, but perhaps at this moment it’s worth thinking about the fact that our relationship with our child needs adjustments for the simple reason that he has grown up.
Ekaterina USHKEVICH,
psychiatrist-narcologist.
I think this is a fairly common situation when a growing child comes home from going out and a parent notices that he smells of alcohol. Many parents in this place ask themselves many questions, namely, to scold or not to scold and if to scold, then how? Scold now or tomorrow morning. To use physical force or not? There are many questions and each of us is looking for answers ourselves. For many parents, a drinking child seems like a real problem.
Let's look at the reasons for this behavior in teenagers. Adolescence is an age of contradictions. The teenager is actively searching for himself, his Self. Not like his parents. He looks for differences between himself and his family. Much of what parents do irritates him, causes indignation and misunderstanding. Added to this is the fact that parents are moving further away; they do not understand, do not support, prohibit and do not respect. Respect from adults is very important for a teenager. Recognition of his right to his own opinion, to make his own decisions means a lot for a growing person. And no matter how much we adults explain that you need to study for a prosperous future or that this food is extremely harmful for you, and this company has a bad influence on you, it will not have a significant effect. After all, a teenager lives in the present and rarely thinks about the future.
So what does alcohol do to a teenager? The most important thing that they strive for at this age is a feeling of adulthood, which means I can do what I want. After all, alcohol is the privilege of adults, and in most families, from childhood, the child observes how parents, celebrating any holiday, drink alcohol. Even if no one in your family ever gets drunk, everything is very moderate and only on special holidays, nevertheless, this is a model of behavior that is very quickly copied by a child in early childhood. And if no one in your family drinks and you celebrate holidays without alcohol, there is the media, TV, the Internet.
Well, let's not forget about teenage negativism, namely, the desire to resist any advice, judgments, or objections from adults. In addition, the teenager believes that this is the belief of adults that alcohol is harmful to health, and for a teenager it is an opportunity to have fun, join the company, and become “one of their own.” When he drinks, he noticeably loosens up, embarrassment, the feeling of his own unattractiveness, awkwardness, and perhaps uselessness go away. On the other hand, alcohol is a powerful, behavior-altering drug, the use of which results in: trauma (road traffic accidents and other accidents), sexual disinhibition, the risk of becoming a victim of violence (rape, beating, robbery), problems with learning and discipline at school.
Statistics provide frightening data. Every second ninth grader drank alcohol during the month preceding the survey; 29% of ninth graders got drunk at least once in the past year; 75% of younger teenagers believe that it is very easy to get alcohol; every fifth Muscovite aged 14 to 20 has tried drugs at least once in his life; 70% of all drug users are under 30 years of age; 30 thousand people die annually in Russia from alcoholism.
So what can you do to prevent your child from drinking alcohol?
The foundation is a strong parent-child relationship. Teenagers tend to delay starting to drink alcohol if they feel they have a close, warm, and responsive relationship with their mother or father. When children have a strong connection with their parents, they are at peace with themselves and are less susceptible to peer pressure about drinking. And most importantly, for the sake of a close connection with their parents, children base their behavior on their expectations.
Unfortunately, many teenagers do not have a close relationship with their mother or father. Why does he suffer a lot? Sometimes parents feel that the child reacts to attention from them with harshness, irritation, and even aggression. This comes from the fact that during childhood, parents did not pay due attention to the child, were not interested in his problems, interests, or devalued his difficulties.
Many parents have the idea that childhood should be happy and cannot be any other way, or the common belief that children or adolescents do not have serious problems, their serious problems will begin when they grow up and enter adulthood. But this is far from true; in adolescence there are a lot of problems that sometimes seem insurmountable. The child has not yet developed defense mechanisms, his ego is unstable, his self-esteem is flexible, and in a difficult situation he cannot rely on himself. And therefore, what seems like a mere trifle for adults is very serious for a teenager.
If parents do not support their child, then it is several times harder for him to protect himself and cope with difficulties. Since, even though a teenager tries to be independent from adults, it is an adult who can provide support and support, and teach him to withstand difficulties. If a parent neglects the above requirements, then sooner or later it will hardly be possible to have a frank, confidential conversation. At this point, the teenager may have ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, he may be pleased by the attention and participation of his parents in his life, on the other hand, it may cause irritation, resentment and indignation.
But there are other situations when, according to the parents, they lived in perfect harmony, and cared and were interested in problems and trusted each other, and here you are, a transitional age and I don’t recognize my child at all. Unfortunately, it often happens that our vision of the situation is radically different from how your child sees the situation.
There are a few simple tips that you can follow to lay a solid foundation for a warm and trusting relationship with your child.
The first thing to do is to encourage the child to talk about everything that interests him. Listen without interrupting and give your child a chance to teach you something.
Encourage him to tell you what he thinks and feels about the issues being discussed. Avoid questions that require only a “yes” or “no” answer. It is very important to control your emotions, do not allow “explosions”, even if you don’t like something. Talk about your feelings, if you feel that you are very angry or irritated - say so and be sure to explain the reason for your feelings. It is a conversation about how you feel about a particular situation that will help you control your emotions and prevent emotional outbursts. And besides, it will teach the child to pay attention to his own feelings and experiences. Don't get personal, talk about actions. For example: “I am very angry that you came later than the time we agreed on. Or. What you are doing really upsets and irritates me. I'm worried about you because it's not safe."
Don’t turn your conversations into an exam; trusting and friendly communication is the key to a successful relationship. Don't hide your love and care. It is very important for a child to know that he means a lot to his parents. Determine clearly and realistically for yourself What do you expect from your child’s behavior? Establish sanctions for violating the rules of conduct and consistently enforce them. Demands without consequences are not demands. This is very important; teenagers always remember the promises you make to them and make sure they are fulfilled. This applies to both positive and negative requirements.
Respect the child's age. As you manage his behavior, respect his growing need for independence and privacy. I know that for many parents this is quite difficult to achieve. But remember that if you do not respect your child, he will never respect you.
Semenova Nina,
psychologist, certified Gestalt consultant.
Valeria Protasova
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It’s already late evening, and the teenage child is still not there. His mobile phone is silent, and his friends cannot answer anything intelligibly. Parents are on duty at the window, freaking out and almost ready to call hospitals. And at that moment the front door swings open, and a “lost” child with glassy eyes and an alcoholic scent appears on the threshold of the house. The child's tongue is tangled, and so are his legs. Dad’s stern look and mother’s hysteria don’t bother him at all at the moment...
The teenager came home drunk. Reasons
What to do if a teenager suddenly comes home drunk?
Contrary to stereotypes, Child alcoholism is not only a problem for dysfunctional families. Often teenagers of quite successful parents, who are fully financially secure, begin to gravitate towards alcohol. Busy parents rarely have time to pay attention to the problems of their growing child. As a result, the child is left alone with these problems, and due to weakness of character, he follows the lead of the situation, acquaintances, or the laws of the street. Puberty is the very age when a child needs more than ever parents' attention. What to do if a teenager appears at home drunk for the first time?
How to protect a teenager from alcoholism
It is quite possible that there are quite adequate reasons for the child’s first intoxication. For example, teenagers celebrated some event together, and the child’s body could not withstand the unexpected alcohol load. Or simple curiosity. Or the desire to “be cool.” Or just “weak”. Perhaps the child will wake up in the morning with a sore head and will no longer touch the bottle at all. But, unfortunately, it happens differently. Moreover, when there are prerequisites and opportunities for this - a group of drinking friends, problems in the family, etc. How to protect your child and prevent the transition of the first alcoholic experience into a persistent habit?
Adolescence is a difficult time for both parents and children. The teenager grows up, learns independence, begins to feel like a person . By teaching your child responsibility and allowing him to learn from his mistakes, you are preparing him for adulthood. The teenager’s further behavior depends on the first alcoholic experience and the parents’ reaction to it. Talk to your child, be his friend, be there for him when he needs you, and then many problems will bypass your family.
Valeria Protasova
Psychologist with more than three years of practical experience in social psychology and pedagogy. Psychology is my life, my work, my hobby and way of life. I write what I know about. I believe that human relationships are important in all areas of our lives.
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