This past Thursday evening Yavneh co-sponsored the Hidden In Plain Sight workshop along with the Bergen County Prevention Coalition, the Communities Confronting Substance Abuse and other local middle schools. As I sat in the audience, I thought back to over 23 years ago, when I began working in schools when we initiated groundbreaking programs as we connected with SAMHSA and did substance abuse workshops for parents and programming for students. But, that was high school. Now, we cannot wait until high school, and we middle school parents and educators need to begin prevention in the middle school. It is hard to believe.
Thursday evening’s program included a presentation from a former addict who began using in middle school. He described how easy it is to get hold of the drugs (including alcohol) at such a young age. He stressed that his parents were were always “on top of him,”and made him call for approval wherever he was when he did not return home. But, they were clueless, and he described how they were hesitant to get into arguments with him when they were suspicious.
The presentation had three primary goals:
- To educate parents about the dangers out there, including the impact on the adolescent brain that drug use can have.
- To encourage us to communicate with our children.
- To share risk factors.
I will attempt in part of my blog this week to summarize the presentation for those who could not be there.
Part of the program consisted of the presenter showing us different places where teens hide their drugs, paraphernalia and even signs to look for like suddenly lots of scented candles hiding smells. They showed us where users hide items in their sweatshirts, their closets, inside pringle cans with false bottoms, (which they can create or order online), or even in special books that they can order online that are missing a chunk of pages and have a space to hide things.
Over and over both the presenters and the recovering addict stressed the importance of speaking to your children. As, I have noted before, and it has not changed in 23 years, teens may make it seem as if they are not listening when we speak to them. However, teenagers who believe their parents would strongly disapprove of substance use were less likely than their peers to use them. Parents are the most powerful influence on their children when it comes to drugs. Losing their parents’ respect is one of the main reasons teens do not drink alcohol or use other drugs. The more conversations we have with them on the topic, and the more we make it clear that engaging in drug use is contrary to our values, the more impact we have.
What should these conversations be like?
- Always keep the conversation open and honest
- Come from a place of love- even with tough conversations
- Balance positive and negative reinforcement
- Keep in mind that teachable moments come up all the time. Be mindful of natural places in order to broach the topic of drugs and alcohol.
Any time we see a change of behavior, grades, social circles etc, it is time to keep an eye out and check in. Some items one might notice are:
- Skipping class, declining grades.
- Negative talk about school
- Acting isolated, silent or withdrawn
- Demanding more privacy and locking doors
- Acting argumentative, and oppositional
- Clashes with family values and beliefs
- Sudden change in relationships and friends
- Preoccupation with alcohol and drug- related lifestyle
(How to differentiate how some of these signs are different from the typical stormy teenage years is a topic for a whole other article. When in doubt...check it out).
One other item they addressed in the workshop is striking the balance between privacy and making sure our children are safe. We discussed searching your child’s room. “Searching your child’s room should be a decision you are able to defend. If you notice any change in your child’s behavior, unusual odors wafting into the hallway from their room, smells to mask other smells such as incense or Lysol spray, or other warning signs you need to find out what's going on behind that ‘KEEP OUT’ sign. Your child needs to understand that the limits you place on him/her do not stop at their bedroom door.”
We, of course, spent much time talking about vaping/juuling. Teens need to know that a pod in a juul is an entire pack of cigarettes and kids are having 2-3 pods a day. Some vapes even look like highlighters! Vapes are extremely addictive. They also spoke about the party drugs, the opiates and marijuana. (Marijuana has more cancer causing chemicals than tobacco! It also can do significant permanent damage on a teen’s brain). We came away with a lot information… we wish we did not have to know.
This past month and a half our 8th graders have been engaging in a Substance Abuse prevention unit in Advisory. These are some of the topics we covered in these sessions:
- The impact substance use has on the brain, which are not always felt immediately
- How a decision a teen makes know to engage in drug use can change his/her life forever
- Drugs do not always make a person feel “happier” due to depressive after-effects
- The dangers of drinking alcohol- including on one’s organs
- The impact on one’s reflexes after drinking
- How peer pressure impacts substance use
- Smoking and nicotine addiction and its physical impact
- Vaping and juuling- IT IS DANGEROUS!!!
- What is in a vape? We discussed carcinogens.
- Addiction to and withdrawal from vaping and long term effects.
In the next two weeks:
- Even though marijuana is legal in some states for 21 and over it is still extremely harmful for teens. (addiction, chemicals, impact on body, mental health and cognition)
- Cellphone addiction- 50% of teens feel addicted to their devices. The physiological effects.
- The compulsion loop.
- Impact on social skills and interactions
- FOMO
- How to curb cellphone and device usage.
- And, of course, our constant discussions about peer pressure, and being an upstander, along with resiliency skills, that we have in all our grades
Our teens approached these topics with maturity, and you hope you continue these in-class conversations at home.
As we approach Pesach, it struck me how addiction is a type of slavery, as an addict is enslaved to a substance (or gaming, cellphones, gambling etc). Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir, in his article. “Addiction- Servitude to Substances” highlighted this idea as well. He quoted Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, a pioneer in the Jewish community in addiction treatment, who said that an addict is “someone who has lost control of his behavior. He is in servitude to his habit. In fact, the modern Hebrew word for becoming addicted is ‘hitmaker’, literally ‘to sell oneself’.” The Torah makes clear that freedom from slavery is the ideal, as is noted as the central theme of the Yetziat Mitzrayim story and throughout much of Torah. Additionally, the status of being a slave is to be avoided as we know that an indentured servant who wishes to stay enslaved beyond his years of servitude must pierce his ear, as a sign of rebuke. Just like it is incumbent upon the family of the person who sells himself into slavery to redeem him, so too does the family of the addict, says Rabbi Twerski, need to redeem him from his “servitude to substances.”
Rabbi Meir says that the Nazir, who does not drink wine, is called so (as per the Ibn Ezra), because Nazir means “crown.” “For all people are slaves to worldly desires, but the true king, who has a tiara and a royal crown on his head, is one who is free from his desires.”
Our goal as parents is to raise children who are true royalty, free from enslavement to their desires and addictions, and free to reach their spiritual, emotional and academic potentials. Only through prevention- at home and at school- can we partner together to raise teens free from addiction.
Advisory Update:
Sixth Grade: Students focused on the topic of popularity- is it worth it?
Seventh Grade: Students continued their Do Not Stand Idly By unit as they saw how BDS is in the news daily.
Eighth Grade: Students discussed the dangers of vaping as part of their Substance Abuse Prevention unit.
