Do you know where your teenager is every hour of the day? Do you know who he talks to and spends time with? Are you completely confident that your son or daughter would never try drugs? If you can answer yes to all of these questions, you are one of the lucky ones. Don't be fooled into thinking, though, that your teen will never be exposed to some form of drugs. Don't automatically assume that your teen's friends would never take drugs or offer drugs to your child. Most importantly, don't believe that your teen will tell you that he was offered or has tried drugs.

Statistics

The statistics are staggering. According to the National Survey of Substance Abuse Attitudes in 2000, more than sixty percent of teenage students stated that drugs were used, kept, or sold at their school. By the time a child reaches the eighth grade, more than fifty percent of teens have drunk alcohol, forty percent have smoked cigarettes, and at least twenty percent have tried marijuana.

There is hope, however. The Partnership for a Drug Free America reports that teenagers whose parents talk to them about the dangers of drug use are forty-two percent less likely to use drugs than those teens whose parents never talk to them. While these statistics give parents hope, only one in four teens report actually having had this type of talk with their parents.