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137: How To Talk To Your Kids About Drugs
180 Plays1 year ago
On August 4th, 2021, Richard Capriola joined Jill Devine to discuss his work as an addictions counselor, as well his book, The Addicted Child. You can hear that discussion on Episode 83: All Children Are Vulnerable To Substance Abuse.
Since that conversation, Richard has gathered more information and statistics on drug use among kids. Jill Devine invited Richard to come back on Two Kids and A Career to share his findings.
Originally published on August 4th, 2021:
Richard Capriola spent 11 years working as an addictions counselor for Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas before retiring in 2019. Menninger Clinic is one of the top ten psychiatric hospitals in the United States and specializes in the assessment, stabilization and treatment of adults and adolescents with substance abuse and psychiatric disorders. During his tenure there he worked in the Adolescent Treatment program and the adult Comprehensive Psychiatric Assessment and Stabilization program. Working closely with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and nurses he was responsible for comprehensive assessments and individual and group counseling with patients diagnosed with substance use disorders.
Through his experience at the Menninger Clinic, he was able to write a book for parents regarding substance abuse, The Addicted Child: A Parent's Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse.
The Addicted Child is a roadmap for parents on adolescent substance abuse. If your child uses alcohol or drugs, you know how it affects your family. These substances enter your child’s brain and change their behavior. You want to help your child, but where do you begin? The Addicted Child is your roadmap. Learn what makes adolescent addiction different. How drugs can change your child’s brain and behaviors. The assessments and tests you should insist upon. And more.
If you have questions or issues you’re interested in hearing more about, email Jill Devine: [email protected] and she will put you in touch with Richard.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production.
Teens' Motivation and Neuroscience
00:00:03
Speaker
The one thing that I've noticed, even dealing with teenagers, is that it doesn't do any good to tell them that the drugs are illegal, that they're bad for them, or that it might affect their grades or getting out of school. They don't care about any of that and they don't believe any of it.
00:00:19
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But what I did notice captures their attention is the neuroscience about it. They're interested. They're curious. They want to learn about things. So the approach that I used with them was to talk to them about the brain.
00:00:33
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Hi there and welcome to Two Kids in a
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:35
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Career. I'm Jill Devine. As an entrepreneur, wife, and mama, the daily grind of trying to build a business while taking care of kids and trying to maintain a healthy connection with my hubby, it's a lot. With this podcast, you're going to hear candid conversations with other moms.
00:00:50
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parenting experts who can share their knowledge and insight, or you'll just hear me rambling to get it all out. There's going to be tears, there's going to be laughter, but most importantly, there will be support. Take a listen and connect with me so we can grow and learn from one another. This is Two Kids and a Career.
Children's Vulnerability to Substance Abuse
00:01:07
Speaker
Back for a second time on the podcast, Richard Capriola is joining me. He was part of a new episode, episode 83. All children are vulnerable to substance abuse. And as a mom to a six and a four year old, I may not need to know this information right now, but it doesn't hurt to know it. And there are a lot of listeners that have kids much older than mine and they
00:01:35
Speaker
need to listen to what you have to say, Richard. First of all, welcome back. Well, thank you, Jill. I appreciate the opportunity to be back here with you and to once again talk about this topic that hopefully we can share some information that will help parents be more informed and perhaps a little less frightened about this topic. Anything that is going to help me feel more prepared, I am all about it, which is why
00:02:04
Speaker
I wanted to have you back on now. You can go back and listen to episode 84 and hear more about what Richard has done to get to where he is now, but he did write a book for parents regarding substance abuse. It's called The Addicted Child, A Parent's Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse. And it's a roadmap for parents on adolescent substance abuse. So basically, this book
00:02:30
Speaker
helps parents understand or the signs to look for. What else would you say for those that haven't had a chance to read it or haven't had a chance to listen to the episode yet? A couple of bullet points that you want to highlight right now.
00:02:46
Speaker
Well, I think the most important part of the book is the parts that help parents know what the warning signs are. Because so many times I would sit with parents and go over their child's history of using a substance. And when I was finished, they would look at me and they would say, I had no idea this was going on. Or if they did suspect the child was using a substance, they would say, I sort of knew something was going on, but I didn't think it was this bad.
00:03:15
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And these are good parents. These are good parents doing the best job they can. They miss the warning signs because nobody had told them what to look for. So I think one of the benefits of this book is that it helps parents know what to look for.
Risks of Drugs on Adolescent Brain Development
00:03:30
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If you know what to look for, the chances are if there is a problem, you will catch it early and be able to intervene and hopefully address the issue before it gets out of control and becomes a crisis.
00:03:44
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Now, there are other aspects of the book that I hope parents would find helpful. There's a small chapter that talks about how the brain works. And the message there is that the adolescent brain is in the process of developing and doesn't become mature until around age 24, 25. So it's important to protect your child's brain. And this chapter talks about how drugs work in the adolescent brain.
00:04:10
Speaker
There is a chapter on if you think your child is using a substance, what type of assessment and test should you get done? There's a brief chapter on what treatment options are available. So I kept this book to about 100 pages because I recognized that parents are busy.
00:04:31
Speaker
They don't have time to read volumes of information. So I kept the chapter short and concise, very non-technical, very user-friendly. And I would say that my intent, my goal is to have parents read this book and walk away thinking, okay, I've got this. I feel a little bit more confident. I hope I don't have to deal with this issue, but if I do, I feel better prepared to do so.
Teen Substance Use Trends Pre and Post-COVID
00:04:59
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we have some new data for you. And so Richard reached out and said that, listen, there's been new data released about one year after we talked. And so now here we are in 2023, we talked in 2021. So that's about
00:05:19
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two years, actually, if I do my math right, but your data had been released and you wanted to share it. And I said, absolutely, because I was reading this summary that you sent me and I thought, well, yeah, we need to, we need to go back. We need to talk about before COVID, COVID and after COVID. And all of that is very important. So I'm going to let you get in to the nitty gritty on this.
00:05:46
Speaker
Okay, thank you. You know, prior to COVID, what we had noticed was that teenagers were still being attracted to alcohol and marijuana. Those are the two substances that
00:05:59
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teenagers have been attracted to for years. But what was somewhat alarming was that for three years prior to the pandemic, teenagers were turning more and more towards vaping substances like nicotine and marijuana. And for three years, we saw dramatic increases
00:06:23
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in the percentage of teenagers who were turning to vaping nicotine and vaping marijuana. It was becoming alarming. Then the pandemic came along and what we saw was that during that pandemic year, the percentage of kids using substances dramatically declined, which I think was to be expected because kids were not in school. They were many of them doing online learning at home
00:06:53
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They weren't associating with their peers as much. So we saw a one-year dramatic decline in adolescent substance abuse during the pandemic. Well, data just came out in January, which now shows us what happened with teen substance abuse a year after the pandemic.
00:07:16
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And what we noticed was while the pandemic forced the largest one year decline in marijuana use that we'd seen in 48 years, it pretty much remained unchanged in 22. And that while we saw a decline in alcohol use,
00:07:34
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Unfortunately, a year after the pandemic, that was probably the one area where we saw the biggest increase in substance use was in teenagers drinking alcohol.
00:07:47
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So we don't think that the pandemic has a long lasting impact on alcohol use among teenagers. Alcohol use rebounded fairly quickly a year after the pandemic. Now vaping continues to be a problem. And as I mentioned, for three years prior to the pandemic, teenagers vaping nicotine and marijuana was vaping. It declined during the pandemic
00:08:16
Speaker
But in 2022, marijuana vaping increased slightly. And general marijuana use increased also, not just vaping marijuana, but marijuana use itself also increased in 2022, but is still below the pre-pandemic levels.
Fentanyl and Online Drug Dangers
00:08:36
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For example, 8% of eighth graders, 19% of 10th graders, and 31% of high school seniors report using marijuana in 2022. Fentanyl is not a big drug among the teenagers. It's not common among the teenage population. It is among adults, and sadly, it's killing too many adults. But what I think is important for parents to know
00:09:06
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It's very important that we as parents educate our teenagers about the increase in deaths due to this drug fentanyl. And it's important that we educate our teens that the pills that they may be buying on social media or pills that might be given to them by friends may contain fentanyl unknowingly.
00:09:34
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So I think parents, as parents, we need to educate our children of the dangers of buying any type of drug over the internet, over social media, and even from their friends, because it may contain fentanyl unknowingly to the person giving it to them or selling it to them. So teenagers just need to know that there is
00:10:01
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danger in buying any of these substances through social media or over the internet.
Rise in ADHD Medications Post-Pandemic
00:10:07
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One of the surprises that we saw in the data was a significant increase in the prescribed ADHD medications used for attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity disorder.
00:10:24
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These drugs were being prescribed under a doctor's supervision, but there was a dramatic increase in the number of those kids being prescribed this medication in 2022. Are you surprised by that? Because I don't feel like I'm surprised by that.
00:10:42
Speaker
Well, what was surprising was the percentage increase that it had dramatically increased. And again, the surprise is in the prescription drugs, not the drugs they might be getting off the street, but the number of kids being prescribed under a doctor supervision these ADHD medications.
00:11:08
Speaker
And we think that the increase was due partly because parents became more aware of their child's attention deficit disorder when they were being sheltered at home. They were able to notice that their child might be struggling a little bit more because they observed them more at home. And then they took them to a doctor and they were diagnosed and put on these medications.
00:11:34
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We think that that's one of the reasons why the increase in prescriptions for these ADHD medications increased rather significantly dramatically during 2022. So the bottom line is we did see a rebound in teenagers turning back to substances.
00:11:53
Speaker
The use is still below the pre-pandemic level, but the concern is, are we on a trajectory where the substance use among teenagers will get back eventually to the pre-pandemic levels? That's the concern. All right. So I'm going to start with a question of those that are taking the survey or however it's distributed to get the results.
00:12:22
Speaker
Is this something that people are doing voluntarily or are these, I mean, I'm just trying to think of what teenagers are openly admitting that they are vaping or that they are taking whatever drug it may be.
00:12:43
Speaker
Well, this survey is done every year by the University of Michigan. It's called Monitoring the Future. It's been done for over, I think, 50 years. And every year, they do a random sampling of kids who are in eighth grade, 10th grade, and 12th grade.
00:13:03
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And it's anonymous you know so these kids are not identified by name or any other way and there's a random sample pulled among those grades nationally and these kids are given questionnaires and give us information on
00:13:21
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what drugs they've been using over the past year. They also respond to questions of how dangerous do you think these drugs are? And they also give us information on how available these drugs are. And what we found out from those two inquiries is that kids believe, teenagers believe that these drugs are readily available. For example,
00:13:47
Speaker
80% of them tell us that it's not a problem to find marijuana if they want it. Over 80% of them tell us it's not difficult to find alcohol if they want it. And then we ask them, okay, so you think these drugs are readily available? It's easy for you to get. How harmful do you think they are? And again,
00:14:10
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large percentages of these kids tell us that they don't think marijuana is all that harmful. They don't think drinking alcohol, even if you drink almost every day, is very dangerous. So when you have these drugs that teenagers perceive are widely available and easy to get, and they don't think they're very dangerous,
00:14:33
Speaker
That is a very dangerous situation among the teenage population. The drugs are easy to get and they don't think they're dangerous. I 100% agree with you. I would say that alcohol, I could see why many teenagers would say that that is easily accessible.
00:14:54
Speaker
I guess one of the things that I keep coming back to, and I know that I might ruffle some feathers here when I say this, that what you mentioned about don't let your kid, we're not condoning taking drugs. That's not it.
00:15:17
Speaker
But you have to have these conversations with them. You have to say you cannot buy things off of the street that you have no idea what's in them because it is different today than it was years ago. And not that I'm saying it wasn't dangerous back in the day, but
00:15:40
Speaker
with the increase of the different, I'm just thinking about like, you know, look at the bath salts and look at this and look at that, like all these things that I have seen over my,
00:15:52
Speaker
adult years and it's dangerous. It's already dangerous, but it's even more dangerous when you mix it with all these things that are not supposed to even be mixed. And so I guess I'm trying to, like if I sat down with my girls, well, when I sit down with my girls, I think you have to say, listen,
00:16:18
Speaker
this is something that you might be interested in. And that's okay to say that. And I think that there are parents that maybe are like, nope, you don't even want to do that. You can't do that. And I don't know. I'm just feeling like this tug in my heart. Like, no, the more we push them away from it and not, we're not honest about it, then that's when it's going to, it could become really dangerous.
Effective Drug Conversations with Kids
00:16:41
Speaker
I think that's right. And I think you should have these conversations with your children beginning at a very young age. I would talk to very young children, elementary age school children. I would talk to them about the importance of protecting their brain.
00:17:03
Speaker
Kids are inquisitive. They want to learn. They want to know about things. And the one thing that I've noticed, even dealing with teenagers, is that it doesn't do any good to tell them that the drugs are illegal, that they're bad for them, or that it might affect their grades, or getting out of school. They don't care about any of that, and they don't believe any of it. But what I did notice captures their attention is the neuroscience about it.
00:17:32
Speaker
They're interested. They're curious. They want to learn about things. So the approach that I used with them was to talk to them about the brain, to help them understand how the brain works and how vulnerable it is, to talk to them about what different areas of the brain are responsible for. And then once they have that understanding, introduce the subject of how do drugs affect the brain.
00:18:02
Speaker
So you have to first of all get them to appreciate the importance of the brain, how it works in protecting it. And then when they understand that, and they can do that at an elementary age. And then when they understand that and they're a little bit older, then you can introduce how drugs work in the brain. So that first you teach them about the brain and the importance of the brain in protecting it.
00:18:23
Speaker
And then later you introduce how these drugs can damage the brain. That has a much more likely likelihood of capturing their attention than simply telling them drugs are bad. Yeah, because it's not going to work. No, it never has. And it won't because they don't believe it. Yeah. And they see what their friends are doing. And yeah, every single person is different. There's peer pressure as parents. We
00:18:50
Speaker
can't just have a blind eye, we have to understand that even though our kids are the best and they wouldn't do those things, they most definitely can do those things. And so we have to get ahead of it. All right, so you mentioned talking to your kids about the way it affects their brain. What else would you suggest to parents who maybe you're like, nope, I don't need to do that. I'm good.
00:19:15
Speaker
Well, I think the danger is in thinking that drugs would not happen to your child. They happen to other kids. They don't happen to my kid.
00:19:27
Speaker
or the danger is thinking that you live in a certain neighborhood, you have a certain income, you go to a certain church and your child goes to a certain school and therefore the chances of them getting involved in drugs is very low.
00:19:46
Speaker
That's a very dangerous attitude because no child is totally protected from being exposed to these drugs. No child is totally protected. There's protective environments, but no child is protected totally. It doesn't matter where you live, urban, rural, suburban.
00:20:07
Speaker
It doesn't matter what your level of income or where you send your child to school. Every child is vulnerable to being captured by these drugs for different reasons. So my message to parents is don't be paranoid about this. Don't be afraid of it. Learn what you can so that you feel better prepared if you have to deal with it. Know what the warning signs are. Know what to look for.
00:20:33
Speaker
intervene as quickly as you can. And chances are you can you can get through this successfully with your child. In our previous episode, episode 83, we did I mean, the title of that episode is exactly what you said, all children are vulnerable, vulnerable to substance abuse. And also we talked about those warning signs. They are in your book.
00:20:57
Speaker
the Addicted Child, a Parents Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse. Before we wrap things up, I was just wondering, I thought it was extremely helpful in that episode. You gave a couple of warning signs that maybe are not even anything parents would notice. Would you mind doing that again on this episode? Yeah, I think many times what we do as parents is when we see behavior that seems a little out of the norm,
00:21:25
Speaker
We tend to think that, well, this is just normal adolescent acting out behavior. This is what adolescents do. And sometimes that's true. That's exactly what they do. But other times there might be something going on underneath the surface that you as a parent may not be aware of. So my message to parents is pay attention to the changes that you see in your child. You know your child better than anyone.
00:21:55
Speaker
So pay attention to the changes that you see. Don't assume that they're just normal adolescent acting out behaviors. They may very well be that, but they might be an indicator that there's something else going on underneath the surface. Some examples would be a child whose grades are starting to decline. A child who used to participate in sports and no longer shows an interest in participating in sports or getting involved in activities. A child who used to
00:22:22
Speaker
introduce you to their friends becomes very secretive of who their friends are. A child who becomes very secretive of where they've been and what they've been doing or maybe coming in at different hours than what they did in the past.
00:22:38
Speaker
So, just pay attention to the changes. Be inquisitive about why you're seeing these changes and have discussions with your children.
Fostering Understanding Without Threats
00:22:49
Speaker
Talk to them about what your concerns are. If you suspect your child is using a substance, don't threaten them. Don't punish them.
00:22:57
Speaker
Don't, you know, come down hard. What you want to do is you want to have a discussion from an inquiring point of view. In other words, I'm seeing these changes in you and they scare me. Can you help me understand why I'm seeing these changes?
00:23:13
Speaker
I think you might be drinking alcohol or using substances and that frightens me. Can you help me understand why I'm feeling that way? So you invite the child into a discussion about how you're feeling and what your fears are and see if they're willing to talk to you about those issues. They may or they may not. But regardless of how those discussions go, if you as a parent
00:23:39
Speaker
I think your child might be drinking alcohol or using a substance. You need to get the assessments done that I recommend in my book so that you can get some professional opinions on whether or not there's a problem and if there is, what you should do. Well, I imagine that there will be many more statistics coming out over the years and that you will be the
00:24:06
Speaker
expert to come on and talk about those things as we wrap things up anything that you want to highlight that we may have missed and I will add that I will have your book and any other information that you want to provide at the show notes at Jill divine calm.
00:24:23
Speaker
Thank you. I appreciate that. And if anyone wants to know more about the book or the resources that are available, they can just go to the book's website, www.helptheaddictedchild.com. The book is available as a Kindle for people who like to read on a Kindle. It's also available in paperback. I would urge parents to get a copy of the paperback and keep it on the bookshelf and use it as a resource.
00:24:49
Speaker
But, you know, my message to parents is, you know, the more you know about this topic, the less fearful you will be. And hopefully the more prepared you'll be to deal with it if you have to.
Importance of Open Conversations
00:25:02
Speaker
You know, you said something just then that did remind me of it's the birds and the bees talk and then the drug talk. Both of those talks are what make parents fearful.
00:25:16
Speaker
and make us want to run and hide. But the more that we can learn beforehand,
00:25:23
Speaker
so that we are prepared, the better. And I truly think too, our kids, when we approach it in a way of either, I don't know, I need to learn more, or this is what I'm thinking, or involving it as a conversation instead of a lecture, it really does make a difference. So it's really good to hear what individuals like you have to say about this, because it is such a serious topic that could really
00:25:52
Speaker
really alter one's life. It is. It's a serious subject. And it's a subject that I think rightfully a lot of parents are afraid of because this can be deadly in too many cases. But it's also an opportunity to have discussions with your children about your fears about these drugs.
00:26:15
Speaker
and help them to understand the dangers that lie behind these drugs as well. Well, Richard, thank you so much and keep working hard at it so that us parents feel so equipped and so positive and reassured about what we're saying to our children. I really appreciate you. Thank you, Jill. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about this again and hopefully share some information with your audience. So thank you so much for inviting me back to the show.
00:26:41
Speaker
And thank you again, Richard, for taking the time. Like I said, you can check out his episode, the previous episode he was on, at JillDivine.com. And that's where you will find every single episode of Two Kids in a Career. I also invite you to follow along on social media, on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. All of those are also at JillDivine.com. So it makes it really easy for you to go to one place and find everything that you need.
00:27:09
Speaker
And as always, thank you for your support of two kids in a career.