Often parents really don’t want to hear about their children’s experiences smoking marijuana or popping pills. They ask tentative questions (“You’re not smoking, are you?”), don’t wait for the answer, and then quickly drop the subject. Many children are consummate con artist. They tell parents what they want to hear. This combination of denial on both the parent’s and the child’s part, plus untruthfulness, keeps the whole subject under cover.

Here are some suggestions for getting beyond the barrier:

• ? Learn from your child. Ask for information: “Could you tell me more about that?” “What is that?” Keep the conversation going.
• ? Don’t ask, “Why did you do it?” In all probability your child doesn’t know and you’ll simply be putting him in an impossible spot. Many of us don’t know why we do some of the things we do.

A parent has to avoid putting the teenager on the defensive, and that isn’t easy. Many counselors who work with youngsters have learned to avoid certain approaches that tend to lead nowhere. They do not:

? Accuse (“You’re lying and you know it!”).
? Label (“You’re a pothead”).
? Belittle friends (“They’re a bunch of losers”).

Instead, they become allies, by listening or by saying, in effect, “I understand that you want to do what your friends do. I’m concerned. What can we do?”

If you suspect that your child is using drugs, what is there to say? Some parents have begun by talking about themselves and their own daredevil behavior or their own experimentation whey they were growing up. This diminishes the “us against them” attitude that pits parents against teenagers. Other parents begin by referring to an article in the paper about an accident caused by drinking and driving or a DWI arrest. Or they may come up with something on the drinking age or school and community policy or legal issues. Others come right out with it by talking about themselves and how upset they feel now that they know that their child is drinking too much or using illicit drugs.