NEW YORK - Most parents know sooner or later they will have to talk directly to their children about the dangers of using tobacco, alcohol and drugs.
Parents also know the timing of these discussions is tricky: They want to get to their youngsters before there is a problem but they certainly don't want to spark curiosity about something the children hadn't thought about yet on their own.
What many well-intentioned grown-ups don't know, though, is that some youngsters who are still in diapers are participating in these sophisticated, nuanced and important conversations - they're the listeners. They pay attention to just about every word that comes out of their parents' mouths and they carefully observe the daily routine of the adults in their lives.
"Talking to kids about substance abuse - it's less about sitting down and having a conversation about drugs and more about setting a good example in the way you live your life," says Gilbert Botvin, director of the Institute for Prevention Research at Cornell University Medical College.
"Kids do learn much more from observing behaviors and attitudes of their parents than from what their parents actually say to them," Botvin adds. "'Do as I say, not as I do' doesn't really work."
Alcohol often is the hardest to deal with because it is served in a majority of homes, which makes availability an issue from the get-go.
Also, Botvin says, it's difficult for children to draw the line of distinction that their parents do between "acceptable drinking," usually occasional or social use, versus abuse.
The way alcohol is used is important, too. It's probably less detrimental for a child to see parents have a glass of wine with dinner nightly as long as it's part of the enjoyment of a family meal than for the child to see parents pour a stiff drink - even if it's once a month - while complaining they're stressed out or had a bad day, according to Botvin.
From a very early age, even before preschool, children should be learning coping and social skills because it often is a lack of such skills that leads to substance abuse, says Botvin, who created the LifeSkills program for parents and schools.
"By developing competent, capable, self-assured kids, as kids get older and get exposed to more high-risk situations, they'll handle it better," he says.
Once children head off to kindergarten, parents will have less influence and peers become more important, according to Botvin, but this age group likely will gravitate toward friends who have similar backgrounds and dispositions, which can help reinforce their own parents' values.
By the third and fourth grades, parents should take an active interest in knowing exactly which friends their children are spending the most time with and what sort of environment they were raised in, he advises.
"Role modeling is so important, even with legal drugs," agrees Jeanette Friedman, director of adolescent services at the New York office of the Caron Foundation, a nonprofit addiction center based in Wernersville, Pa.
