What to do if/when DCs ask if you've ever tried drugs???

[Merse]

My DD has just had a talk at school about drugs. I think that's an excellent thing, but am now dreading the moment she asks me if I have ever tried/taken any. Am torn between my natural instinct which is to be honest whenever possible - and a worry that the truth could be unhelpful in this instance…… Bottom line - I did dabble with drugs back in the day, but don't want to do or say anything that might give the impression to my TEN year old DD that that is ok. If she thinks I did it and am fine then I worry she will think why not try it herself if/when she comes across them which I fear will be sooner than I can bear to imagine society being what it is

Feel really conflicted on this. Would love to hear people's views….

My Mum and Dad told me about their drug experiences and smoked weed in front of me when I was a teenager.
It didn't deter me, just gave me a good argument to try things myself.

I do lie to DD. I will often talk about 'a friend' who did xyz and regretted it, when I am actually talking about me.
We have a good relationship and she talks to me a lot. At the moment she wants to join the police force so keen to stay on the straight and narrow at the moment. She is nothing like me as a teenager, I'm really proud of her.

This is a tricky one! For the posters who can be honest and say "I tried X and didn't really like it / it was a waste of time" etc then honesty is great. For those of us who thought it was GREAT then honesty starts to look less like a good idea.

Like the OP I try to be honest with them - they are little oldest is 8 so it might come up soon.

Maybe take the approach I took with alcohol. So not make it personal but you know why people do it (makes them feel good) what happens if they do too much (can fall over make stupid decisions) too much can make you ill and I think I had a pretty good stab at explaining addiction as well. And then reiterating that most people just have a little bit and it makes them feel good so it's not something to worry about unless too often / too much / addicted.

Dunno tough one. I don't think honesty would be the best policy here probably and especially not at 10.

I suppose some of this depends on personal attitude to drugs & background with them as well. I would want to give a more nuanced message than "drugs are bad" but not at 10.

I told them I smoked dope until I had to get up and go to work in the morning. Long, long time ago.

Chaise not even my DH knows every detail of my past. I did a lot of things I am really ashamed of and a lot of things happened that I don't really want to relive. It wasn't a particularly happy time in my life.
I'm not sure how it would benefit my daughter to know I took drugs. It's not as if I won't discuss drugs or sex etc with her. I just don't discuss my personal experience with her.

Do you lie about other things as well.

Hell Yes. It Is My Parental Perogative when that is appropriate.

And I'll be and if they always tell me the truth. Have you ALWAYS told your own parents the truth? Looking back, did you really want to know the truth from your parents every time? I know way too much about my mother's sex life (yuck) while she edited out loads of things that didn't make her look so good.

Maybe I'm self-delusional, but from what I pick up, DC tell me a lot more truths about their lives than their friends say to their parents. I've caught DC friends out in small lies to their parents (things I just did not want to get involved with).

I have also told DC 'I won't talk about that until you're older' and they know I won't budge.

"I have also told DC 'I won't talk about that until you're older' and they know I won't budge."

This is good. I'm stealing that :D

I was offered drugs at 11. That was in 89. When we lived in London my son knew a posh little middle class boy that was stealing and smoking cigerettes at 8, we'd already been honest with our son by then. Sometimes older is too late.

I too like that line. The ' this is not an age appropriate thing for us to talk about' stance.

But that is not lying. I don't agree with lying to children.

I do think there's an argument to be had for admitting limited drug use. My feeling is if you don't then they'll just think you're completely clueless and can't possibly understand how BRILLIANT it is, if they do decide to dabble. Because On my way! most dabblers think drugs are amazing right up until it all goes wrong. I think I would be inclined to say "yes I ha e tried one or two things but I ended up wishing that I very much hasn't and I don't one other person who doesn't feel the same." Maybe when they're older I would mention the long term mental health issues I have that I feel we're very much aggravated by my dabbling.

"On my way" should be "in my experience"

For all of you who thought drugs were great - if they were great why wouldn't you say that to your kids so they can have a similarly great experience?

Serious question

Our answer is very simple. No, dad and I haven't ever tried drugs because that is the truth. We have also always added in stuff about criminal records, addiction, expense, impact on health, biased research one way or another, etc.. It helps that one of DS's best friends' mums sister was addicted to class A drugs and drowned in her bath. DS has heard about that from his friend and his friend's mum since he was four years old.

DH has a "restricted" career where any whiff of drugs would be a complete no no and any gossip about it would have stemmed his success. I've also done a lot of recruitment and sat on many many panels involving whether someone can be employed because of what pops up on DBS checks. So we also have robust discussions about consequences.

Doesn't mean the DC haven't argued about the legalisation of some drugs, how alcohol and tobacco can be as harmful and basically driven me to distraction. Am pretty sure DS had had a dabble with stuff available at festivals but think it's out of his system now.

We have always taken a zero tolerance stance and been very clear about what we consider to be the boundaries.

For the same reason I am cautious about the message I give them about drinking alcohol.

And because with with illegal drugs there are additional concerns around getting arrested and so forth.

I suppose as someone mentioned upthread if they repeat stuff at school you could end up with the police/ SS knocking which is obviously not great.

For me, I think the government approach to drugs is utterly incoherent, and I will be quite comfortable talking to them about that when they are old enough to be able to understand and explore that.

I sense that question wasn't really asked in good faith though.

Of course many things can be "great" (from an enjoyable perspective) and "a terrible idea" at the same time.

Navigating that is kind of a fundamental part of life isn't it! And different people have different approaches to risk, different moral or ethical frameworks and so on, it's all quite interesting I guess. And no-one has common sense win out over temptation every single time (not thinking just about drugs there obv).

Of course some people use / abuse various substances because of problems going on if their life which is another factor in all of this. And some people are just drawn to altering their state of mind because of their personality, that's as old as the hills and across societies.

It's a wholly interesting subject to me.

It was asked in good faith.

I suppose people's experiences aren't really just 'drugs were great'. It's 'the drugs themselves were great but I ran a huge risk in terms of my future life and career choices by doing them and I was very lucky'.

I think the 'drugs were great so I'm going to deny it and not talk about it' gang could actually have constructive things to say

I don't really feel lucky, that I "got away" with anything? Most people I grew up with used drugs, it was just the normal thing to do in this part of london and the groups that I mixed with. Everyone has grown up to be just normal people and not impacted at all.

I think for me that my alcohol use caused way more problems which is why I tread carefully with this and feel that a real conversation is needed. Illegal drugs - bad, doom, legal drugs = meh whatever (not suggesting that is the approach any of the posters on here take but YKWIM!) just feel very wrong to me personally when it comes to conversations with children.

And saying yes alcohol is just as bad so don't do ANYTHING is (depending on the personality of the child and what their peer group are up to) possibly going to cause more problems than it solves.

All thsi IM very personal opinion of course.

Lie, lie and keep lying.

If you don't remember much about it, it didn't happen anyway

As said, I had a great time taking drugs in the 90s. Never heroin or anything ultra-addictive, but still, they aren't drugs I'd love to know my DCs are ramming down their throats (because they are my little powder-puff babies and I hate the thought of them poisoning themselves!

TBH - I do think one day that if they wanted to watch the sun coming up, chewing away and dancing like a loon with music blaring and hugging everyone- I can see why that would be a fun thing for them to do. As it was for me. I don't really want to deny them that.
I am going for the "motorway argument" for not taking drugs. Yes, I was lucky crossing the drug motorway in that I didn't get smacked by a metaphorical car. But they may not be as lucky as I was. And when something goes wrong with drugs, it can go very wrong. There are so many students ending up in hospital after legal highs.

I will also show them that although weed can be fun in small doses, long term it is so strong nowadays that it can cause psychosis etc.

I don't really have an addictive personality so I think I really wasn't going to be addicted to drugs, but I have no idea if my kids have that kind of personality, so would rather they didn't test it out. But if they do, I hope that they will talk to me first so we can make sure they are safe.

Ok, I'm going to assume that anotherdayanother's question was genuine - and that she hasn't tried drugs herself.

It depends which drugs you take, I suppose. But generally, the initial sensation is fabulous. Scarily wonderful. The trouble is when it starts wearing off - either later that night or the next day. Horrendous come down. Logical if you think about it - one's seratonin levels have been given a massive artificial boost and need to sink back down to normal - but that 'come down' feeling is Hellish. The desire to postpone or avoid that feeling leads to the desire to take more and more. That can drive ugly out of character behaviour. If you have an addictive personality then it is much worse. And then you can become disgusted with the way you are living/behaving.

Hope that makes sense.

Apologies if this was already said. My other tuppence is:

Kids asking this question don't actually want the true answer, they aren't (at all) that interested in parents' real history. They do want to launch a discussion. To ask when-why-how it's ever okay to take drugs; why do people do wrong things, when is it okay to break the rules, how do they resist peer pressure, etc. (Ditto when they ask about sex, shoplifting or vandalism.)

Discussion is always good to have, so there's no perfect answer to the question, it depends how best to encourage discussion with your kid.

Even if you loved taking drugs, unless you believe taking illegal drugs now is a good decision, it's pretty easy to give our kids strong reasons not to bother.

I also seem to return often to telling DC that I expect them to think for themselves. To not just do bad or daft things because other people think it's a good idea. Besides, they happily diss my dress-sense/car/taste in food or music, so where's the logic in copying my drug-taking history?

I totally accept CactusA that not everyone has bad come downs. But some people really do (from coke and MDMA in particular) and it can have very unpleasant consequences. And agree that it is ridiculous to group them all together as 'drugs'. Also agree that we have no idea what the current drug offering is - or what it will be in years to come…..

The other reason I think it can become really dangerous is that 'real life' can begin to seem really flat and dull. Like black and white vs. colour. I remember starting to think the only way I would have fun at a party was if I knew drugs would be involved. Not healthy I think.

So the actual taking of the drugs may not be that bad, but what it leads to in terms of mental health, staying up all night, not eating properly, overdoing it on the booze front (in case of coke) is often problematic.

My question was serious and I have done drugs myself. Not trying to make any great point or trip anyone up

I'm not sure what I would say myself to my DC so I'm thinking out loud. I think I would be totally honest. Lots of it was fun, a lot wasn't. I don't think I had a 'great' time with drugs though. But that might have been my depression, but maybe drugs exacerbated that? I'll probably just say all of that!

Whirlpool - just to clarify, the risk I was referring to was risk of arrest. Legal ramifications etc really