Can anyone recommend a good way to educate DS(11) on drugs?

[crummyusername]

Hi, DS will be going to secondary school in September. He is still young but I know that at some point he'll get exposed to drugs, and I want to have a conversation with him about it well before that happens so he makes good choices.

Although I'll advise him to say 'no' to everything I'm not convinced that's going to be very effective on its own. I'd like to be able to share some factual information on what different types of drugs there are and what the risks are, in an age appropriate way.

I can't find anything on Amazon. I've looked at the FRANK website but it's too detailed and hard to navigate for the level of conversation I'm thinking of at this stage.

If anyone has book recommendations, or youtube videos or whatever I'd love to hear them.

He will have special assemblies and PSE lessons on this during his time there.

School can give him the facts about drugs, but you need to give him the incentive and resilience to avoid them.

Find out what he already “knows” and be prepared to be shocked about how much he knows and how wrong he might be. Don't forget to include legal drugs like nicotine and alcohol in your discussions.

Think about why someone might choose to use drugs then work out how to minimise that for him (thrill-seeking, being part of a group, role-models, peer-pressure, approval from someone older...). Whilst you are researching, look up County Lines and how young people might get pulled into that.

Keep talking with him. Make sure that he knows he can come to you whatever the problem and whatever he may have done.

Another idea is to see if you can locate the local PCSO and casually introduce your son, so your son feels comfortable speaking to them if he has any concerns in the local area.

Thanks. I'm sure he will have classes at school but I don't want to just rely on that. I do want to give him some quite specific information eg on what different drugs he may come across and why he should be careful of each (eg weed may actually be skunk, can make you lethargic; a single e tablet can be fatal; etc) but I do not have the knowledge myself to do this. I had assumed there would be some book I could get hold of.

Sprinkles thanks for the suggestion but he's only 11 so that seems a bit early, really I want to make this a 1 to 1 conversation between us, partly for the reasons Apple said that he feels he can come and speak to me later if he needs to.