Grades 4 through 6

Continue to take a strong stand about drugs. At this age, children can handle more sophisticated discussion about why people are attracted to drugs. You can use their curiosity about major traumatic events in people's lives (like a car accident or divorce) to discuss how drugs can cause these events. Children this age also love to learn facts, especially strange ones, and they want to know how things work. This age group can be fascinated by how drugs affect a user's brain or body.

Explain how anything taken in excess - whether it's cough medicine or aspirin - can be dangerous. Friends - either a single best friend or a group of friends - are extremely important during this time, as is fitting in and being seen as "normal." When children enter middle or junior high school, they leave their smaller, more protective surroundings and join a much larger, less intimate crowd of preteens. These older children may expose your child to alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.

Research shows that the earlier children begin using these substances, the more likely they are to experience serious problems. It is essential that your child's anti-drug attitudes be strong before entering middle school or junior high. Before leaving elementary school, your children should know:

the immediate effects of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use on different parts of the body, including risks of coma or fatal overdose;
the long-term consequences - how and why drugs can be addicting and make users lose control of their lives;
the reasons why drugs are especially dangerous for growing bodies;
the problems that alcohol and other illegal drugs cause not only to the user, but the user's family and world.

Rehearse potential scenarios in which friends offer drugs. Have your children practice delivering an emphatic "That stuff is really bad for you!" Give them permission to use you as an excuse:

"My mom will kill me if I drink a beer!" "Upsetting my parents" is one of the top reasons preteens give for why they won't use marijuana. Teach your children to be aware of how drugs and alcohol are promoted. Discuss how advertising, song lyrics, movies, and TV shows bombard them with messages that using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs is glamorous.

Make sure that they are able to separate the myths of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use from the realities, and praise them for thinking for themselves. Get to know your children's friends, where they hang out, and what they like to do.

Make friends with the parents of your children's friends so you can reinforce each others' efforts. You'll feel in closer touch with your child's daily life and be in a better position to recognize trouble spots. (A child whose friends are all using drugs is very likely to be using them, too.) Children this age really appreciate this attention and involvement. In fact, two-thirds of fourth-graders polled said that they wished their parents would talk more with them about drugs.

Courtesy U.S. Department of Education: Growing Up Drug-Free: A Parent's Guide to Prevention - 1998