So You Found Out Your Teen’s Tried Drugs…

…What do you do now?

Most parents of teens have to ask this question at some point.  Drugs are ubiquitous, especially as your teen grows older.  For example, as shown in our teen drug use infographic, 82.1% of high school seniors think marijuana is “easy or fairly easy” to get.  That’s more than 4 out of 5 teenagers, so it’s likely that at least one person in your teen’s social circle feels confident they could obtain marijuana.  About 90% of 12th graders think alcohol is easy or fairly easy to get.  The breakdown for 8th graders is just over 40% think marijuana is easy to get, and just over 60% think alcohol is, while for 10th graders 70% think marijuana is easy to get and 80% think alcohol is (if you’d like to check the statistics drug by drug you can check out the Monitoring the Future study for 2010 here.  Scroll down to Tables 15, 16, and 17 for availability info).  With prom either here or around the corner, these are statistics to keep in mind.

We have an article coming up tomorrow about being aware as a parent about the potential issues surrounding prom and graduation parties, etc. but today we leave you with a video by Licensed Family Psychotherapist Susan Stiffelman, MFT on parentdish.com.  Watch below or check out her extended advice at the article link, “My Son Confessed That He’s Tried Pot!  Should I Punish Him?” And if you are interested in testing your teen, you can also check out our urine drug test kits page for more information and/or to purchase.