- be really careful with drugs. Everything here (Philadelphia) is laced with fentaynl these days and people are dying on the regular. If you choose to use drugs, you are putting yourself at a huge risk, more so than in the past, because you don't know what's in your drugs.
Yes, this should be highlighted more. It's NOT just the pills. There are news stories about vape cartridges and marijuana being laced with fentanyl. I don't think it's as prevalent as in pills, but still something everyone needs to be aware of.
Parenting teens is not for the weak of heart. It’s HARD!
I didn’t quote your whole post in case you didn’t want it all out there, but I am in a similar boat with my 15 year old, he was expelled for carrying a THC vape he got from another kid and admitted to trying pot a couple times. Drugs are rampant at his school and he really just doesn’t see what the big deal is (yet, but hopefully he will?) Another kid was expelled the following week after getting sick from vaping too much or laced pot during school in a classroom.
Like a lot of small, wealthy school districts, they are turning a blind eye - no drug testing, no dogs, no random searches, etc. The kid DS was carrying for hasn’t been caught despite his car being searched. Thar kid posted on social media a photo of a pipe under his car seat with “lucky they didn’t find this”. But other kids involved have been expelled too. (Not saying DS shouldn’t be in trouble, just saying it is clear who is going to get in trouble for the same things).
Also, for those moms of athletes, watch out for the prescription drugs if they get injured. It is very easy to get a teen hooked on those and then they go looking for something to help at school which is when harder drugs can slip through. I warn my son about that all the time. Don't take any meds from your friends (not even Tylenol). Never even offer Tylenol to a friend, advise them to go to the nurse.
My nephew had a severe injury and ended up with surgery. He was running out of pain meds and was complaining of pain. The dr reused to give a refill and explained to my sister, its probably his brain playing tricks on him. He said if its bothering him in a few days after he is done to go back and see him. Sure enough 2 days without the meds and he was fine. Albeit a bit scared of those feelings. Thankfully that dr knew better.
Yes! My son is a baseball pitcher and I worry about this. I don't even want him to take Advil so as not to get into the habit. It's common for some to take 3-4 after a pitching outing. They also overuse pre-workout sometimes too.
Also, for those moms of athletes, watch out for the prescription drugs if they get injured. It is very easy to get a teen hooked on those and then they go looking for something to help at school which is when harder drugs can slip through. I warn my son about that all the time. Don't take any meds from your friends (not even Tylenol). Never even offer Tylenol to a friend, advise them to go to the nurse.
And our coaches encourage or give the athletes pre-workout and smelling salts (both of which are not at all necessary or recommended for kids their age). I know about it because DS tells me stuff, but many other athlete parents have no idea - so it’s not like the coaches are getting parent consent. It’s just another message of drugs being good/needed/no big deal as long as your performance is good.
Post by mysteriouswife on May 8, 2023 14:47:08 GMT -5
This is one of those uncharted territory for me. I avoided being around drugs due to family ties to law enforcement. H was on the other end. He never experimented due to family history of addiction. He also hung out with the party crowds. We have a very open dialogue with DD about family history. After seeing her SGFIL die from addiction she is very vocal to her peers about it. DS is only 7 and I can’t even pretend to know what it will be for him as a teen.
DD will also say the bathrooms are full of drug use and vaping. She was in the bathroom a few weeks ago when she found a girl extremely intoxicated. She left to get a teacher. The school has not been very responsive to the parent concerns. I can imagine it’s hard to keep it under control. The school is extremely overcrowded and understaffed.
I feel for anyone navigating this as a parent, educator, or public service. It’s daunting
My focus with my kids (12 and 14) and my students (8th graders) is the same:
- be really careful with drugs. Everything here (Philadelphia) is laced with fentaynl these days and people are dying on the regular. If you choose to use drugs, you are putting yourself at a huge risk, more so than in the past, because you don't know what's in your drugs.
- Be really careful around other people when they are drinking or using drugs. Drugs change people.
- Use me as an excuse (this is more for my kids, though I have students who say they have used this line . Say "my mom is really strict and she will kill me" if you're in a situation where you feel pressured to drink/smoke/vape and want to say no. Go ahead and pull out "my mom literally teaches our health class. She will know".
- Never ever ever drink under the influence or get in a car with someone who has been drinking or using. Call me. I will come get you, no questions asked. I hope you will keep me in the loop but being safe and in trouble is way better than being in danger or being caught.
- It's hard to be a serious athlete and use drugs regularly (this only works bc my kids are serious about sports).
At the end of the day, you can only keep the lines of communication open, give them the information, and trust that you have raised them to make smart and safe choices. It's hard.
My kids are just about the same ages (DD turned 12 in Feb and DS will be 14 in July), and this is 100% what I've told my kids, with the exception of teaching a health class, since I'm not a teacher. And while I'm not in Philadelphia, we have it here in the Grand Rapids, MI area, and I assume that everything here is laced with fentanyl too.
ETA: Apparently kids vape in the school bathrooms at my kids' middle school.
Also, for those moms of athletes, watch out for the prescription drugs if they get injured. It is very easy to get a teen hooked on those and then they go looking for something to help at school which is when harder drugs can slip through. I warn my son about that all the time. Don't take any meds from your friends (not even Tylenol). Never even offer Tylenol to a friend, advise them to go to the nurse.
My nephew had a severe injury and ended up with surgery. He was running out of pain meds and was complaining of pain. The dr reused to give a refill and explained to my sister, its probably his brain playing tricks on him. He said if its bothering him in a few days after he is done to go back and see him. Sure enough 2 days without the meds and he was fine. Albeit a bit scared of those feelings. Thankfully that dr knew better.
Yes! My son is a baseball pitcher and I worry about this. I don't even want him to take Advil so as not to get into the habit. It's common for some to take 3-4 after a pitching outing. They also overuse pre-workout sometimes too.
Yeah, my son plays basketball and his knees will act up sometimes. Those instant ice packs are like $1 at Walmart that you squeeze to pop. I always have some on hand.
I really appreciate you all sharing stories. My son is in a small K-8 school and we haven't heard of anything happening there. I talk to my son about not taking any kind of pill from anyone or any kind of loose gummy or candy. I also pointed out that they might not be trying to get him to take something, but that they might not even know what it is.
The public middle school apparently has a lot of vaping. Some parents say their kids won't even use the bathroom.
I worry about it. Keep an open dialogue and talk to them about it.
They are 14 and tell me about drugs being at school and discussed. They know to call us if they need to. I haven't noticed anything, but I'm also not naive.
I do peek into their backpacks sometimes and I help clean their room sometimes, and I've never noticed anything.
I also tell them to use me or their dad as an excuse. I will happily be the bad guy and get you away from a situation.
I talk to my kids about drugs and alcohol all the time even though I'm pretty positive they don't do either. They are 19 and all of their friends drink. Not sure about drugs. I know a few smoke weed. They've never been interested in alcohol. They just don't want to drink. I honestly don't know how we raised sober kids. I'm glad they are but my husband and I drink and we've never threatened them with punishment or anything if they do. I couldn't even get them to have a sip of champagne at their high school graduation party. They've avoided college parties all year because they don't want to be pressured. I finally got them to attend one for the social aspect. We have addiction issues on both sides of our family so that's likely played a part in their decision making.
I know they've tried smoking and weed before but neither one is really interested in that either. I've told them repeatedly if they want to smoke weed just get it from their dad. He has a prescription. At least I don't have to worry as much about it being laced with fentanyl.
They will be living in the dorms next year and are a little worried about being around so many people who drink and do drugs. I just tell them to stay true to themselves. Don't let other people make you feel bad about your choices and find your people. The school they are attending is massive. Surely there are other sober people there. I may get them some narcan to keep at school just in case. I'm so much more worried about drugs than alcohol.
Post by mcppalmbeach on May 8, 2023 15:40:07 GMT -5
I’ve thought about posting similar so thanks for doing this! I worry a lot about this. I was by all accounts a “good kid” and I definitely started underage drinking by 7th grade.
I think there’s plenty of vaping at our middle school, particularly in the bathrooms. My 8th grader said he’s seen it a few times and he’s told me which kids smoke pot and vape. He is a rule follower, but also desperately wants to fit in and be “popular” so I definitely think there’s a good chance he’ll try something sooner than later. He recently fessed up to me about something (not illegal) that he’s done wanting to be part of a crowd when he knew better..and then he proceeded to freak out over how horrible he is. It’s a real delight over here.
I also worry about the fentanyl situation and how scary that is compared to what I dabbled in in my youth. My health department gives out narcan for free and I keep meaning to run by there.
My parents were partiers from way back so they knew every trick in the book. Even with my dabbling I was much better than them lol. The story in my house was definitely always that no matter the situation we will come get you no questions asked…and yet. I still did my fair share of getting into bad situations and not calling. I wasn’t worried about getting in trouble, more about them being disappointed/worried and I can see my son being that way too. So I’m not sure how I can set that up better than they did.
My parents were also definitely “the cool” parents. Not that they allowed my friends or me to drink or use drugs (At 43 I still don’t even drink around my parents lol), but definitely my friends knew they could talk to my mom. My elementary school bff and I drifted apart in high school but were still friendly and I will never forget her calling me to say she had taken acid and was on a bad trip and needed to go somewhere to sleep it off and she knew my mom would be understanding. Which she was and she never told friend’s mom..is that the right thing to do? I don’t even know.
This is the #1 parenting subject that keeps me up at night. I have a long family history with alcoholism and addiction and I haven't been shy with telling my kids about it (in as age appropriate way as I can) and how our genetics play a role in addiction.
My 17yo SS doesn't seem to have any interest in drinking and I believe him. He was caught by his mom with a vape pen and he has admitted to trying both nicotine and pot. Unfortunately he is almost never at our house anymore, so much of the parenting falls on his mom's shoulders and I don't know that she's doing anything to really handle it.
Just an fyi, and this is SUCH a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but any little bit helps…there are products on the market right now that are air quality sensors that a lot of school districts are purchasing to use for bathroom monitoring to try to prevent vaping on school property.
These sensors tie into the school district IT network, and if the air quality drops outside of a certain range, it sends a notification to the network administrators and someone can locate which bathroom is being affected by smoking or vaping. Obviously these can (and are) used in areas other than school bathrooms, but those are the most frequently used locations. If this is something you’d like to see used in your school district, please reach out to your district about it. They are NOT expensive (and often can be offered for free on a trial basis), and have been proven to be extremely effective in cutting down on smoking and vaping in bathrooms at school.
Apparently the kids have to request to use the bathroom on their Chromebook’s. I’m sure it’s super annoying for both teachers and students but then they can see who was where if they run into vaping or vandalism. Remember the Tik Tok videos to vandalize school bathrooms?
A couple people have brought up whether you tell the other parents if you know their kid is using something. I think it's a great question. "Mind your business" is pretty much my life motto, and I really don't want to insert myself in someone else's drama. But I also would want to know as a parent, so it's hard to navigate.
When DS told me last week about the kids he knew who were using-- they were generally all kids that he has known since elementary school and I do have their parents contact information. But for the family I know best... the kid has apparently smoked weed *with* his dad (parents are divorced) so I'm not touching that one with a 10 foot pole.
I think where I land is that I would only contact parents if it was on my watch (like if DS has friends over and I catch them drinking in the basement or something).
The situation that mcppalmbeach described would be tricky. If I wasn't involved in them trying drugs, and they felt that I was a safe person for them to call when they were in trouble, I wouldn't want to jeopardize that. I actually just had a talk with my 11 year old where she had to identify 5 "trusted adults" that she felt that she could go to if she had a problem. She is pretty blunt about the fact that I am not that adult for her. But I would trust any of the adults that she identified to help her if she needed it. And I would be OK with them keeping it confidential so that DD continued to trust them in the future.
Post by mysteriouswife on May 8, 2023 16:25:20 GMT -5
Something I thought about after replying.
Was smoking not a thing in your schools? I feel like we couldn’t come out of the bathroom not smelling like a bar. I feel silly clutching my pearls knowing things haven’t changed that much. Just the substance.
Was smoking not a thing in your schools? I feel like we couldn’t come out of the bathroom not smelling like a bar. I feel silly clutching my pearls knowing things haven’t changed that much. Just the substance.
It was a thing but there wasn’t a ton of it in the school bathrooms. We had a SRO and hall monitors that would crack down on it, so maybe that was why. I saw it more in random parking lots or people’s cars.
Jinkies, the only issue we had like that is a friend lied to her mom and said she was at my house and then visited a boy. Her car broke down and she called me/ my mom to pick her up. We took her home and told her to tell her mom. But obviously there was a missing car so…. The truth would have came out anyway. I guess we could have had her stay with us that night but I mean she still needed her mom’s help to pick up the car and get it fixed so I don’t think it would have mattered in terms of timing. So we just dropped her off and was like Um good luck with your mom. Mom was pissed at me but got over it since I wasn’t part of the lie. I was part of something earlier in the day, but not involved in that event.
Was smoking not a thing in your schools? I feel like we couldn’t come out of the bathroom not smelling like a bar. I feel silly clutching my pearls knowing things haven’t changed that much. Just the substance.
I don’t want to be teens will be teens. This is a serious problem. I just feel it is a problem we have had for decades. I don’t have a solution or know what to do if my teen experiments. Just pondering thoughts rolling around in my head.
Was smoking not a thing in your schools? I feel like we couldn’t come out of the bathroom not smelling like a bar. I feel silly clutching my pearls knowing things haven’t changed that much. Just the substance.
Not really, and if they did it was outside. Nobody smoked in the bathrooms that I ever knew about.
A couple people have brought up whether you tell the other parents if you know their kid is using something. I think it's a great question. "Mind your business" is pretty much my life motto, and I really don't want to insert myself in someone else's drama. But I also would want to know as a parent, so it's hard to navigate.
It is so tricky. There are two specific instances of DS' friends smoking/vaping marijuana. DS isn't as close with friend A but I'm very good friends with his parents. Friend B has been a close friend of DS for 9 years, although they stopped talking because Friend B has really changed since he started smoking. I know and text with Friend B's dad just because of their friendship over the years. But I don't know him well.
Both sets of parents know their kids have vaped because both have been caught. But I don't think the parents know the extent of how much they smoke (like, daily). I think they think it may have been a one-off thing.
DS has BEGGED me not to say anything. Which is really hard because as a parent I'd want to know if the shoe were on the other foot. But I also want to respect DS' wishes, don't want to cause problems for him at school, and want him to continue to come to me with these things. So yes, very hard to navigate.
Was smoking not a thing in your schools? I feel like we couldn’t come out of the bathroom not smelling like a bar. I feel silly clutching my pearls knowing things haven’t changed that much. Just the substance.
Do you mean weed or cigarettes? People smoked cigarettes, but never in school. I remember hearing of some kids smoking weed. But it wasn't prevalent and again it definitely wasn't happening at school.
Was smoking not a thing in your schools? I feel like we couldn’t come out of the bathroom not smelling like a bar. I feel silly clutching my pearls knowing things haven’t changed that much. Just the substance.
I don’t want to be teens will be teens. This is a serious problem. I just feel it is a problem we have had for decades. I don’t have a solution or know what to do if my teen experiments. Just pondering thoughts rolling around in my head.
Not in middle school, which is why I think I'm so pearl clutchy about it now. Kids definitely drank and smoked weed in high school, but that was not the crowd I hung out with at all. Maybe it's just that my son isn't nerdy enough to be insulated from it like I was LOL.
I honestly don't remember kids smoking in the bathrooms even in high school, I think they did it outside.
Was smoking not a thing in your schools? I feel like we couldn’t come out of the bathroom not smelling like a bar. I feel silly clutching my pearls knowing things haven’t changed that much. Just the substance.
Do you mean weed or cigarettes? People smoked cigarettes, but never in school. I remember hearing of some kids smoking weed. But it wasn't prevalent and again it definitely wasn't happening at school.
It was both at my school. I even smoked in the boys bathroom.
I don’t want to be teens will be teens. This is a serious problem. I just feel it is a problem we have had for decades. I don’t have a solution or know what to do if my teen experiments. Just pondering thoughts rolling around in my head.
Not in middle school, which is why I think I'm so pearl clutchy about it now. Kids definitely drank and smoked weed in high school, but that was not the crowd I hung out with at all. Maybe it's just that my son isn't nerdy enough to be insulated from it like I was LOL.
I honestly don't remember kids smoking in the bathrooms even in high school, I think they did it outside.
Oh we had a whole group on the football team expelled for smoking in the locker room in middle school. I think this is when most of H’s friends were exposed to drinking at parties
Post by SusanBAnthony on May 8, 2023 17:09:06 GMT -5
Apparently boys at our school were vaping in bathrooms. They installed vape detectors. I don't know what age because it's a combined MS/HS building with grades 6-12.
My older kid is oblivious and I have zero concerns he'll try anything. My younger one I will definitely worry about but is also more self aware and likely to report this stuff to me if it is happening around her. She says (grain of salt) it isn't happening with any of the MS girls she knows or hangs around with.
Was smoking not a thing in your schools? I feel like we couldn’t come out of the bathroom not smelling like a bar. I feel silly clutching my pearls knowing things haven’t changed that much. Just the substance.
I do not remember this. I also don't remember anyone being high or drunk at school! I did not hang out with kids who did any of those things - I was never even offered drugs before college (and then only weed!) and had very little exposure to alcohol in HS either. I assume some of the other crowds did this stuff but I was oblivious to it I guess - our school was just your average middle class suburban public school but somehow people either weren't doing stuff or weren't doing it at school.
And yes I had a lot of friends and was pretty social, but it was mostly band/drama kids so perhaps that saved me.
There was a huge drug bust at my middle school when I was there. The PTA president’s kid had a massive amount of acid in his locker and got expelled along with a few other kids.
Same thing in high school but mostly weed. We even had a 21 Jump Street style cop in one of the classes.
I wouldn’t say most kids drank at school but there were always a couple. I don’t think it’s great but I don’t think it was too unusual. My guess is it was going on even if you didn’t know it. I have always had an ear for gossip lol
This is the #1 parenting subject that keeps me up at night. I have a long family history with alcoholism and addiction and I haven't been shy with telling my kids about it (in as age appropriate way as I can) and how our genetics play a role in addiction.
My 17yo SS doesn't seem to have any interest in drinking and I believe him. He was caught by his mom with a vape pen and he has admitted to trying both nicotine and pot. Unfortunately he is almost never at our house anymore, so much of the parenting falls on his mom's shoulders and I don't know that she's doing anything to really handle it.
This is why the convo was start ridicuously early with Miss R given her family history - dad, gma, cousins, etc ... all had addiction issues. I pray she didn't get her dad's addiction gene but her inheriting her dad's brain chemistry suggests otherwise.