Pit threads are my anti-drug

The BBQ Pit
1

Okay. I actually liked the first round of “The Anti-Drug” TV spots because they encouraged kids to find an interest or a hobby. Most kids could use something to keep them out of trouble, whether trouble happens to be drug abuse, gangs, violence or what have you.

Now I’m seeing TV spots that show kids pleading with their parents to ask them who they’re with, what they’re doing and where they are at all times. I can agree that involved parenting would probably prevent kids from getting into harmful things like hard drugs, but there’s a difference between “involved parenting” and “parenting via Lo-Jack.”

Almost everyone in my neighborhood who took the “Questions: The Anti-Drug” approach when I was growing up ran into problems with their kids. They never built up any trust and ended up with kids who felt as if their parents could never trust them.

Most parents should have a good idea of where their kids are and what they’re doing, but parents can run into problems when they demand to know everything that’s going on. That approach is pretty authoritarian, and kids instantly rebel against it. Kids in my neighborhood who operated under this restrictive system ended up sneaking out at night on a regular basis. The vast majority of these kids eventually developed addictions to alcohol and to hard drugs. The neighborhood parents ask “Why did this happen? His/her parents were so involved in their lives.” In reality, these parents weren’t involved in their kids lives. They were building a relationship in the absence of trust. So the kids, who felt that they couldn’t earn that trust regardless of what they did, rebelled and ended up with serious problems. Many of them waited until the chains came off in college to acquire substance abuse habits, but some were kicked out of the house before their senior year in high school.

I grew up with these kids in the same neighborhood with pretty much the same socio-economic conditions, and I made it out of childhood with no chemical dependencies. When I was younger, my parents did want to know who I was hanging out with and where, but they eventually adopted a more lax approach once we were able to build up a base level of trust. They stopped worrying about whether I was doing inappropriate things because my mom, my dad and me had invested trust in the relationship and didn’t want to see that trust eroded. Granted, there were times when I made poor choices and chipped away at that trust from time to time, but I was never made to feel as if my parents needed to track me from place to place and know where I was every second of every day.

Overprotective parenting doesn’t solve drug problems. A trusting relationship does. How can kids develop a trusting relationship with their parents if parents demand to know where they are, who they’re with (etc.) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

What’s my anti-drug? Pit rants against idiots who have no business recommending parenting tactics, when all they’re trying to do is scare parents into coming down on drug abuse with an iron fist, instead of looking into the reasons why kids abuse drugs and looking for a more realistic solution.

I hope that whoever came up with these PSAs ends up using their own tactics to raise their kids. And I hope their kids cause them endless (and public) embarrassment as they emerge as 15-year-old heroin addicts with severe emotional issues.

2

Actually, I didn’t like the original anti-drug ads. The typical one would have some kid dancing along, being menaced by syringe-wielding crackheads, but the kid defeats them because they’re blown away by his music, or she dances over them, or somesuch. I can’t help but feel that a kid who is in a community where drugs are a real problem is going to look at this and think, “yet another preachy PSA by some rich guy with no grasp on reality.”

Frankly, I’m getting sick of PSA’s in general, particularly the one with the preemie. “Was it her mother who smoked? Was it her father that smoked?” I wonder if the people who make these things are a little like Hannibal Lecter. They can’t actually physically hurt smokers/drunk drivers/whatever, so they fuel all their rage into trying to hurt them psychologically. At least the prolifers aren’t putting aborted fetuses on primetime, but now we have to put up with the fetusmobile.

3

THespos–this pretty much describes my relationship with my parents to a T. I was always a good student, involved in activities, athlete, etc. but every time I walked out the door it was “Where are you going, When will you be home, Who will be there, What’s the phone number, Will parents be home?”
If any of my answers were unsatisfactory, I wasn’t going anywhere, regardless of how innocent my plans might be. Eventually, I made sure they weren’t innocent. After all, if they thought I was smoking/drinking/screwing/sniffing/shooting anyway, why not at least get the experience to go with the guilt, right? Stupid, I know; but I was 15, and if I listed all the stupid ideas I had at that age it could fill volumes. Now, I’m not claiming to know what the answer is, or even that there is one definitive answer that would work for everyone. Actually, chances are that there isn’t. I just wanted to chime in and say I agree with you wholeheartedly about the restrictive parenting=no guarantee of happy ending thing.

Also–just my opinion, but it seems to me that parents concerned enough about their children’s welfare to take advice from a PSA (which still refuse to differentiate between use and abuse and, in so doing, lose a lot of their credibility if you ask me) probably have decent kids to begin with. Decent kids have a much better chance at making it, even if an addiction does creep in, because of the family support. It’s all those kids whose parents couldn’t give a fuck that are in real trouble. I’ve seen it time and again from both sides.

Ben–“fetusmobile”? Do tell!

–bella

4

At first I thought that PSA meant “piece of shit advert”, but then I realised that it actually means “public service announcement”.

But maybe I was right the first time.

pan

5

I always thought those “talk to me, Mom” advertisements were great ideas. This is because I never thought they called for draconian parenting.

You’d be surprised how little parents know about their children’s lives. I’m disheartened by how much they don’t talk to their children. I don’t mean lecture or reprimand; I mean hold actual conversations.

Those “talk to me” commercials are geared toward people like my aunt, who left to work at 7am and did not return home until 11pm. She had absolutely no idea what her 3 kids were up to all day long. She was shocked shocked when her son was arrested for snatching purses.

And, yes I need to know where my kids are. I’d like to know who they’re with. Once and only once was there a night that 10pm rolled around and I had no idea where the hell my daughter was. You have no clue as to how frightening this was.

So, where do you draw the line as a parent? Know your children. Talk to them. Understand them. The above incident with my daughter frightened me beyond anything I’ve ever known because my I know my daughter. I know she would not just decide she was hanging out and not tell me.

What’s wrong with telling parents to talk to their children? What kind of trust can be built between a parent and a child if the parent doesn’t know what the child is up to?

6

I’m going to agree with Biggirl on this. I haven’t seen the ads, but I think the point of it is to convince parents who have no clue what there kids are doing to get one. While over restrictive and authoritarian measures can be harmful, so can the parent who just says, “yeah, whatever, do your thing” all of the time. I was a very “good” kid, and my parents still wanted to know where I was going, and to have a contact number and all that. Was it frustrating sometimes? Yes. But, their need to know was also accompanied by a positive relationship that we had. A parent whose only interaction with his/her kids is to be restrictive and overprotective will fail miserably, but so will a parent who doesn’t express any interest.

In high school, there were some people who were rebelling against authoritarian parents who were into drugs and such, but the vast majority of the “partiers,” drinkers, and pot smokers in high school were able to do so because their parents didn’t seem to give a shit where their kids were, or thought that they had no control and so never tried, or wanted to be “cool” and “hip” parents who didn’t interfere.

Well that’s bullocks. I think the “questioning parents = rebelious kids” statement is a… post hoc argument (am I getting that right?). There are other factors leading to rebeliousness such as parents who don’t have a friendly relationship with their kids anyways, which can go along with questioning.