Comments on: Sex, Drugs and Body Image: A Coping Plan for Teens & Parents

By: eva

eva — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 03:46:36 +0000

I’m a mother of three teens 1 boy and 2 girls. as per my observation they were curious of everything. i let them to explore with a proper guidance of course and so far it doing good. i treat them as my best friends and i don’t think they have the reason to hide at me. so far they all have clean living lifestyle. but if ever i would definitely follow the 7 steps that you suggest.

By: Ollie

Ollie — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:09:57 +0000

Its awful when you’re in that hole with depression, but I believe you can climb out of it, its a long journey but boy is it worth it, as the suffering and the experience in the long term becomes an asset. Would you agree?

By: Felix

Felix — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:19:29 +0000

Sex, guns and rock and roll used to be hot in my times. I think the only thing that’s changed is the music is now hip hop. Love changes a lot of things. Sometimes children turn into parasites and parents into need givers. We need to change that to be able to make a dent into the mind and heart of our own children.

By: Kylie

Kylie — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:01:14 +0000

When being a hobo is cool and smoking pot is child’s play, I am not surprised we need so much of help from counsellors and psychologists. Substance abuse amongst young people is the most sickening thing happening with society these days.

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:41:32 +0000

As the parent of two girls I am constantly shocked at just how far parents and the media are allowing their own young girls to take things these days. The clothes are ridiculously trampy and they are encouraged to be sexy from a very early age. What is going on here? This is crazy. I feel like I have to do more and more every day to take matters into my own hands- I am even looking for schools that require uniforms because I think that takes a lot of pressure off of girls of all ages. We try to do what we can to monitor the images that our kids are exposed to but it is not enough. Many messages that they receive depict drug use and starvation as cool, not as real problems. Not only does this need to be talked about at school, but also in the home, everywhere the kids are to make it loud and clear that this type of behavior is scary and dangerous, and completely not cool.

By: Hilman

Hilman — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 05:32:52 +0000

I caught a kid I know smoking pot recently. He told me that he was fed up of the noise in his life. His mom and dad are divorced and neither is a responsible person to take care of him. His friends taunt him and tease him for being a loser. Noone cares whether he exists. I definitely agree with the role model thing. Even if you are not a white collared parent atleast be there for your kids and show them that you are doing the best you can to make their life worth living. I am sure that goes a long way.

By: Becks

Becks — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:33:47 +0000

Maybe if children had heathier role models everywhere they turned instead of those who always seem to be on the path to destruction we would not have a lot of these problems.

By: Dale

Dale — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:50:14 +0000

Then they need to be given more things at home and at school that they can do and feel in control of and good about, not just thinking of the things they can do with their bodies. Whatever happened to teaching them about being proud of things they accomplish at home such as improvement projects or being proud of the things that they do at school. This is more than enough proof that we are all focusing on the wrong things in life and teaching teens and even younger children to think about them too. Give them responsibilities to live up to at home, and when they do a good job praise them for it. Do not make their lives so that the only things they receive praise on is how emaciated they look or how drunk they got the night before. Peer praise can steer them in the wrong direction- we as adults have to step in and do more for them.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:28:45 +0000

I think teenagers need a friend more than anything. Being a friend to your child doesnt mean you have to smoke pot with them but being involved in their lives and making them THE priority. If you havent done it in their pre-teen years make a start atleast in the last years they live under your roof and your rules. I think its cool if a dad and son take up kick boxing together or if a mom and daughter have a day at the spa together. Teenagers do know the right from wrong and lecturing them is not going to help.

By: Sage

Sage — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:21:55 +0000

I like number #1, putting a name on it. I think the idea of the family coming up with their own language for the problem is a great way to get everyone engaged in trying to understand what’s going on, and to put it in a context that feels true and right. It can be hard for people to find meaning in clinical terms, and those terms don’t always capture everything that the family members need to have included in their official designation of what the problem is.

By: Yancey

Yancey — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:49:35 +0000

I really like the look of the Coping Plan. I agree with carrol, we as parents need to remember what it was like when we were in School and were teenagers. I used to be a teenager and I do remember, vaguely how it was.

By: carrol

carrol — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:21:55 +0000

All teens just need to have something that they feel in control of and this is but one of the many ways that this need manifests itself.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:51:52 +0000

Adolescence is such a difficult time. I remember being a teenager and being faced with so many hard choices and very frequently making the wrong decisions simply because I did not yet have the mechanisms in place that I needed to be able to make wise and studied choices. I am very fortunate that none of the choices that I made have had a detrimental effect on my life, but it is a wonder! I have a very hard time with parents who seem to have forgotten everything that they did as a teen and who then hold their own children up to very unrealistic expectations. I hope that in your therapy sessions you work with the whole family to discover what is going on in this young life and helping them all to explore all of the underlying issues and the things they can do as a family to facilitate a better and stronger environment for everyone.