Are Parents Less Likely to Discuss Drugs Today?

USA Today reported that parents of teenagers are actually slacking off when it comes to educating their kids about drugs. A survey released on Tuesday taken by The Partnership for a Drug-Free America ( http://www.drugfree.org/ ) shows that today’s parents are not explaining the risk of drug use to their kids as the parents of teenagers did a few years ago.
In 1997, 98% of parents in the survey said they had talked to their children at least once in the previous year about drugs. Unfortunately, this number dropped to 85% of parents in the survey talking to their kids about drugs in the past year.
Steve Dnistrian, the executive vice president of the partnership says that the danger in not talking to their kids is that parents will convey a lax attitude toward illegal drug use.
Dnistrian contributed the number of parents talking to their kids about drugs dropping to the fact that “today’s parents came of age when pot smoking reached an all time high and they feel that talking to their kids about drugs would be hypocritical.”
The survey, involving 1,205 parents, also showed that they saw less risk in using certain illegal drugs (such as marijuana) versus others. Incidentally, the survey indicated that 11% of the parents themselves had used marijuana in the past year.
The average age of parents of today’s teens is 42, which would put them in high school when drug use was at its peak, according to the article. Is this really the reason for children today being less educated about the risk of drug use by their parents? Perhaps, but not necessarily.
Despite the trend, most parents do remain concerned about the drug use of their children. Slightly more than half of those surveyed said they would be upset if their child even experimented with marijuana.
An article published by The Partnership for a Drug-Free America can be found at http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/About/NewsReleases/Parents_See_Less_Risk_Talk_Less_with_Teens .