Substance abuse among our kids, when does it start?  High school?  That is pretty much what I thought, until I read an article that cited a study about drug use among youth in my area.  That study found that 31% of seventh graders had begun to abuse alcohol by the sixth grade!

Time to get my head out of the sand and realize that being intentional about forming my sixth grader’s understanding about alcohol, prescription drugs and street drugs is upon me.

That same article indicated that a positive parent-child relationship plays a key role in drug proofing my kid.  Recently my sixth grader talked me into playing a ‘first-person’ video game along with him.  Seriously, I stink at video games. I am a digital alien who can count the number of hours spent with a joy stick with two hands and still have fingers left over.  But my son looks forward to this “time” together, and I am finally seeing that for me it isn’t about the video game but about building relationship with him.

When it came to having meals together as a family I thought we were doing pretty well. Let’s review. Last night all of us ate together. Sunday night, well my daughter was entertaining friends downstairs, but we all ate the same stuff. Saturday, hmmm — oh yah we were out. Friday, nope again; one was at work and another at a youth thing. Thursday, nope; we were busy at the church. Wednesday, yes! Tuesday, nope; I was traveling. So what is that? 2 out of 7?

Isn’t that pretty good?

It is not according to a study done at Columbia University regarding the importance of family dinners.

The study found that in comparison to families that have frequent family dinners (5 or more per week), those teens that have supper with their families twice or less per week are:

• three and a half times likelier to have abused prescription drugs
• three and a half times likelier to have used an illegal drug other than marijuana or prescription drugs
• one and a half times likelier to have drunk alcohol

The study also reported that:

• 84 percent of teens prefer to have dinner with their families rather than eat alone
• Teens who have fewer than three family dinners per week are more than twice as likely to do poorly in school

I don’t come away from reading these findings thinking that if we just have more meals together as a family that everything will turn out rosy. But the studies have reinforced for me the importance of regularly plugging into my kids’ lives.

What do you take away?