Talkabout

06/12/2007 @ 09:24 ablely said:

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My daughter came in quite late last night and she had a funny look about her and she smelled a bit odd. She fumbled about in the kitchen for a little while and then went to bed - we didn't really speak much.
Does anyone know how I would recognise if she was taking drugs? I am not really sure how to react or what to think. I know that lots of people take drugs these days and I am not sure if it is a very bad thing or just something to keep an eye on.
06/12/2007 @ 09:30 Anonymous said:

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hi abley, don't think we've met before - what age is your daughter? It's probably normal to experiment but as long as she knows she can talk to you if she gets herself into trouble, that you won't fight with her, you'll always be able to rescue her from whatever life throws at her?
06/12/2007 @ 11:33 roze said:

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WHat sort of relationship do you have with your daughter? As dubs says if you can talk with her then you can maybe open the question. I imagine this is quite a common concern. A friend said to me that children who are unconfident and not doing well in classic academic environments are more susceptible to experimenting with drugs - especially if they have more mature peers who take drugs and who they like to emulate. Yet that does not really fit my experience. Some casual use of recreational drugs is probably not harmful.
06/12/2007 @ 14:48 zorro said:

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Hi there abley
I dabbled with drugs as a teen, was pretty unavoidable growing up in a city - but perhaps nowadays anywhere its unavoidable - they are, unfortunatly, very easy to get hold of! My mum told me recently that she knew all along what I was up to (and there was I, like all teens, assuming I had pulled the wool over my own mothers eyes)... She said she trusted that I had good friends and that just watched (very carefully) to see if it was just a 'phase' - which it inevitably was. Sadly a very very close friend of mine was less fortunate, and despite an 'intervention' (which included my mum) she lost her way to crack... I dont mean to scare you but I do think that the right parenting decides whether drug taking in teens remains experimental, or goes to addiction. My friends mother was too caught up in her own issues to really sort her daughter out, and what started as a cry for help, enveloped her and ruined her life....
If you think she is taking drugs, then maybe talk to FRANK before you do anything as they offer support and advice to parents and teens... good luck!
http://www.talktofrank.com/home_html.aspx
06/12/2007 @ 18:23 Swon said:

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Hi Ablely, Firstly, you might just be worrying over nothing, it’s quite possible that she had just had a few drinks, now you might want to discourage her from that as well, depends on her age as much as anything. However, much as I dislike directly disagreeing with others in this environment I'm afraid that this time I'll have to risk it. While it is almost certainly true that drugs are easy to come by now, (they weren't that difficult to find in the mid-sixties either) that is no justification for thinking it might be ok if your child 'just experiments', or to think that 'some casual use of recreational drugs is probably not harmful'. Otherwise, by the same token you could argue that guns are easy to get now (in the UK) so we might as well let kids experiment with those as well. I've known quite a few people who have had their lives destroyed by drugs and everyone of them started just to see what it was like. OK, if you want to play the numbers game then only a small percentage of youngsters who experiment go on to get hooked, but you don't know that your daughter might not become one of that small percentage.
As a teenager it is very very difficult to resist peer pressure, we all know that, but you need to do all that you can to get close to your daughter on this one and guide her away from the potential hell of becoming an addict who will do anything for a fix. One final point, you will get some people saying that booze and tobacco can be damaging and yes they can but which ever way you cut it, they are not in the same league as the drugs you are talking about, recreational or otherwise. Even what used to be a simple bit of weed has recently taken on a far more sinister mantle with the appearance of 'skunk', and I don’t think I’ve heard of a Benson and Hedges being cut with scouring powder. Sorry to be so harsh but was no easy way to say all that without diluting the message. Like I said, I would encourage you to get close to your daughter on this. How you do that is your call because only you know what your relationship is like but whatever you do, don’t just leave it and hope it’s just a phase she’s going through. Good luck.
08/12/2007 @ 08:47 7vicar said:

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my parents didn't condone drugs, alcohol, any of the usual teen traumas, but their attitude to dealing with the threat was key to my not going off the rails - my friends whose parents flipped out about them even being in a room where someone might smoke a joint meant they lied, snuck around, did appalling things, and ultimately couldn't turn to them when things went wrong. Many of them had very traumatic experiences, some of which one or two of them never recovered from. Abley you can tell your daughter you don't condone experiementation if you wish, but do it with warmth and respect and you will never, ever lose her. You have to trust that you raised her well, to know the difference, from everything I've read on here about your family it sounds like that is the case.
08/12/2007 @ 19:21 Wolfie said:

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Dear ablely, what a challenging talkabout.
The problem I feel with drugs is that, whilst we have all done a bit of 'experimenting' here and there - it is the ones that then can't pull away from the 'experiment' that are in trouble.
All the love in the world will not stop someone becoming an addict if that is what their body decides.
Another issue to consider, with a bit of 'splif' anyway, is that it can, in a small number of people, lead to enbearable paranoia. I know of someone who has had to be institutionalised as a result of a bit of dabbling in soft drugs.
So, I don't think I have helped much.... I don't know what the answer is and I don't know what I will do when my children are old enough to have a go .... I think we have to follow our heart

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