Teens & Drugs - Gender Differences

Excerpted from
Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences
By Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D.

When you talk with your kids about drugs, stick to the facts. But keep in mind that the relevant facts are different depending on whether you're talking to a daughter or a son.

For your daughter, make sure she understands the harm of using drugs. If you're not sure of the facts yourself, start with a balanced, unbiased, noncommercial source of information. I recommend the National Library of Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health. Go to their "layperson's" website, type in the name of the drug that you want to learn about, and you'll get reliable, accurate information.

Remember that girls get most of their drugs from friends, and that the transaction usually takes place in a private home. Know where your daughter is. Know who her friends are. Talk to her friends' parents. Ask her to check in with you frequently throughout the day. Consider purchasing one of those personal GPS trackers I mentioned in the last chapter. Keep tabs on her. Make sure she knows that you will be checking up on her. And verify her statements, openly, with her cooperation. If she says that she's at Melissa's house, ask her to call you back using Melissa's home phone rather than the cell phone. Look at your caller ID: Does the number match Melissa's home phone number? Make sure your daughter understands what you're doing and why. That knowledge will actually empower your daughter to refuse unsafe requests. If her friends invite her to go downtown to somebody else's home, she can tell them: "No, I can't, because my mom makes me call her from everybody's house and she'll see from her caller ID that I'm not where I told her I'd be." For thirteen- and fourteen- and fifteen-year-old girls, that technique really does work. "I wish my mom cared that much about me" is what one girl said after another girl I know explained her mom's requirements.

What about boys? My experience is that the approach I just outlined for girls is ineffective for boys. First of all, the trick of asking your teen to call you from the home of a friend is a nonstarter with boys. Boys who "check in" with their parents will be ridiculed by other boys, as your son will quickly learn. Second, remember that boys are more likely to purchase drugs from a stranger, outdoors, in a park or on the street. So keeping track of which particular house your son is visiting is less relevant.

Regarding drug education: the evidence of the past thirty years suggests that educating boys about the dangers of drugs is a waste of time. On the contrary: emphasizing the harmful, mind-blowing, damaging effects of drugs can boomerang. That approach will pique the interest of thrill-seeking boys. Remember that these are the same boys who go snowboarding down a steep mountain without taking a lesson first.

So what works with boys? My recommendation is: clear and consistent discipline. Tell your fourteen-year-old son, "If I catch you drinking or smoking or using any kind of drugs, we'll take the PlayStation and lock it away for the three months that you're grounded." Teenage boys prize mobility and independence. Tell your fifteen-year-old son: "If I catch you using drugs, you won't be driving until you're seventeen, not sixteen." Tell your sixteen-year-old son: "If I catch you drinking or using drugs, you lose the car keys for six months. Minimum of six months." These measures may seem extreme, but they can also be lifesaving. And I haven't found anything else that works-for boys.

What's for Supper?

We've been focusing on what I call "negative discipline." Punishment for bad behavior. What about positive discipline? What positive interventions have been shown to decrease the risk of drug and alcohol use?

Answer: eating supper together. According to the Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse, "The more often teens have dinner with their parents, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs." The protective effect of teens having dinner with their parents is greater for girls than for boys, but it's significant for both sexes.

Why are kids who eat supper with their parents less likely to use drugs? Several reasons come to mind. First, parents who insist on eating supper together with their kids are more likely to be parents who know what their kids are doing. Kids whose parents are involved in their lives will be kids who are less likely to use drugs and alcohol, compared with kids whose parents don't bother to make the effort.

Second, if it's an ironclad rule that your kids have to be home for supper, then there's less opportunity for them to be somewhere else. If your son isn't home when you get home, and he doesn't arrive home until ten or eleven or midnight, then you really don't have a clue what he's been up to, do you?

I know you're busy. Everybody's busy. But please, try your best to make dinner at home a family affair. And here's one rule you should never break: when all family members are at home at supper time, all family members should eat together. I see more and more families for whom eating separately is an accepted way of life. Dad brings a pizza home, but neither of his kids answer when he announces that he's home, so he eats alone in the kitchen. Twelve-year-old Dean darts into the kitchen a minute later, grabs three slices of pizza, and goes back to his room, closing the door behind him. Fifteen-year-old Diana sneers at the pizza, takes a cup of yogurt out of the refrigerator and grabs a spoon, all the while talking on her cell phone. Mom arrives home half an hour later. It's too late to make a proper supper, and besides, everybody's already eaten, so she just tosses something in the microwave for herself.

Your kids won't starve if they have to wait a few minutes for supper. Maybe another reason kids do better in families that eat supper together is because with everybody's busy schedules, eating supper together requires you to stay in touch with one another during the day. It gives you a reason to call your child (aside from custodial checking-up). "I'm running late," you tell your son on the phone at 4:30 P.M. "You're good at making spaghetti with meatballs, so you're the cook tonight." (Your son groans.) "Check in the kitchen to make sure you have everything you need," you tell him. "I'll call you back in fifteen minutes."