Monitoring Your Kids
Why "I'm Going Out!" is Not Enough of an Answer

Whether it's been in your own living room or on a TV sitcom, you've seen and heard the scenario before:

Father: Where are you going?
Teen daughter: Out.
Father: Who are you going with?
Teen daughter: [raises her tone] I'm just going out with everybody. I'll be home later.
Door slams. Scene ends.

Time for a rewind on that one. Although this dad might not have known it, he was attempting to monitor his daughter-and he shouldn't have let the scene end with the door slam. "Parents need to know what their kids are doing," says Anthony Biglan, Ph.D., a senior scientist at the Oregon Research Institute. "They can discourage behaviors that lead to drug use." Kids who are not regularly monitored by their parents are four times more likely to use drugs.

What is Monitoring?

We won't mince words here: Although monitoring is one of the best ways to keep your kids off drugs, it isn't always easy. "If a child readily talks about what's going on, then monitoring happens naturally during the course of events," says Biglan. "If it doesn't happen naturally, parents need to make some rules to facilitate monitoring." That means:

• Know where your child or teen is at all times. Make sure he/she knows you're asking out of love, not because of a lack of trust.
  
• Personally know all of your teen's friends. Having your teen point out their friends from down the block just doesn't cut it. Know their faces and their voices. Interact with them whenever possible-without actually forcing them to play scrabble with you.
  
• Find out your kid's plan for the next day. Looking for something to discuss during dinner? This is a great one. "So…what're you up to tomorrow?" Easy. Right?
  
• Limit the time your child spends without adult supervision. The after-school hours of 4 to 6 are the most dangerous time for tweens or teens to be on their own. The potential for peer pressure or boredom leading to an after-school drug use habit are huge. If you or another adult you trust can't be home for your teen, find out about after-school programs they can get involved with.

According to Biglan, monitoring becomes critically important when kids reach middle school. Because kids go from class to class during middle school or junior high, they don't develop the close relationships they had during their earlier school years. Also, kids at this age are extremely sensitive to the beliefs of their classmates so peer pressure becomes a major contributing factor in their behaviors. Of course, monitoring doesn't mean you have to go through your child's dresser drawers. "Kids need an increasing amount of privacy as they get older and that's ok," says Biglan. But the balance between monitoring and privacy can shift if signs of drug use show up. Remember, says Biglan, "when it's time to intervene, kids' privacy issues take a backseat."

The Thanks You May—Or May Not—Get

You might have seen some of the new Partnership for a Drug-Free America advertisements running on TV lately: They're a collage of kids discussing how their parents butt into their lives and made things, at times, miserable—but the end message from their kids to their parents is "thanks." Although you might not hear that word out of your teen's mouth for a long time, keep it in your head as you question your teen.

Of course they're going to rebel against your questions—they're at an age where they're trying to assert their independence and figure out who they are as a person, not as your child. You can work with your teen to help him or her find that out without giving up the monitoring control you really need. In fact, by really understanding what he or she is up to, you might even see an opening to learn more about the person your teen wants to become.

The Advertising Campaign

The "Questions" campaign, created by J. Walter Thompson USA/Chicago (JWT/Chicago) for PDFA, features television, radio, print and outdoor ads that encourage parents to ask four simple questions Who? What? When? and Where? of their children.

"We can tell parents 'talk to your kids about drugs,' but some just don't know what to say," said dennis Ryan, executive vice president/executive creative director, JWT/Chicago. "We want to reach parents with emotionally charged spots that propose four basic questions: Who? What? When? and Where? Being involved in your kids' lives helps prevent drug use. Asking these four simple questions is an important way to start monitoring their time."

Keeping Teens In Hand

To be a "hands-on" parent, at least 10 of the following 12 must be true.
You must:

• Monitor what your kids are watching on TV.
  
• Monitor their use of the Internet.
  
• Put restrictions on CDs they buy.
  
• Know where your kids are after school and during weekends.
  
• Be told the truth about your teenager's whereabouts.
  
• Be aware of your teenager's academic performance.
  
• Impose a curfew.
  
• Make it clear that you would be ''extremely upset'' if your teen used marijuana.
  
• Eat dinner with your teen six or seven nights a week.
  
• Turn the TV off during dinner.
  
• Assign regular chores for your teen.
  
• Have an adult present when the teen comes home from school.
  

For more information about monitoring, please call 1-800-788-2800.

Reprinted from Drug Free America with permission -- click here to visit the Drug Free America web site and take advantage of other great resources like this one.