Life classes

SOONER or later, it's an issue that every parent is going to have to confront. One day, their children are going to come into contact with drink and drugs - and it may well be sooner than many parents think. In our drink-obsessed society, in which every Friday and Saturday night can turn into one giant binge, we shouldn't be surprised that from an early age youngsters become curious about alcohol.

And with the media obsession with drugs - especially last weekend's revelations of about Prince Harry's exploits with cannabis and booze - and the hard-hitting storylines run in children's programmes such as Byker Grove, it's inevitable that sooner or later, talk behind the bike-sheds will start turning in that direction too.

Advice from the Department of Health is that it's much better for youngsters to learn about drink and drugs from their parents than from playground gossip or watching the telly. "If you don't talk to your child about drugs, someone else will," warns a DoH information leaflet.

But for parents who are learning how to bring up kids as they go along, knowing how to raise such issues with their children is far from easy.

Like many parents of children nearing the upper end of primary school, Christine Sinclair feels ill-equipped to tackle such problematic issues with her eight-year-old daughter, Cassie.

"It is a very important topic and needs to be brought into the light," she agrees. "There is so much playground talk and they see drugs and alcohol on the telly. They need to know the facts, not just stories.

"But I don't know a lot about drugs. We've got a good relationship, but if she asks me questions I would like to know what I was talking about."

Lisa Noble, whose nine-year-old son, Corey, goes to Westfield Primary Community School in Acomb with Cassie, says she, too, feels ill-equipped to discuss such matters with her son.

"It's always on your mind, and you can't help but worry," she says. "If ever he did get involved in anything like that, I hope he would talk to me. We have a good relationship. But I just don't have enough information."

It's to help parents such as Christine and Lisa that health promotion workers in York will he hosting two evening parents' workshops later this month.

Aimed at the parents of children in the upper years of primary school and lower years of secondary school, the workshops will provide parents with reliable information about drugs, solvents and alcohol, and introduce them to work being done with young people in some of the city's schools, including Westfield.

The workshop will also include a dramatised scene between a young person and their parents, designed to help real-life parents broach the subject of drugs, solvent and alcohol with youngsters.

York health promotion specialist Clare Barrowman, who will be hosting the 90- minute workshops - to be held from 7.30pm to 9pm at the Friargate Theatre in Lower Friargate, York on Wednesday, January 23 and Thursday 24 - says it is vital that parents are able to discuss such issues openly with their children.

"Research indicates that children want to talk to their parents about drug and alcohol issues," she says. "But research also shows parents feel unable to because they themselves don't know that much and they don't know how to start a conversation with their child."

Among the information that will be given to parents at the workshops is a Department of Health leaflet Drugs And Solvents: You And Your Child.

It advises parents on the do's and don'ts of raising the issue with their children. Bullying and lecturing children doesn't work, the leaflet says, adding: "remember how it felt to be lectured at?"

Preaching or trying to scare children with shock, horror stories is also the wrong strategy.

Instead, the advice is to try and make sure you maintain a good, open relationship with your children in which they feel they can talk freely with you about anything. It's important to listen to what they have to say, and even to talk to them about how you felt when you were a child.

The worst thing, says Clare, is simply to leave everything unsaid and then fly into a rage if one day your child comes home drunk, for example.

"If you find your child drunk, the last thing they need there and then is a huge, blazing row," she says. "They're not going to take it in, and you're just going to get more upset."

Instead, she says, the advice would be to help your child to bed, let them sleep it off, then discuss things in a rational way once you have calmed down.

Talking isn't always easy, Clare admits, but in the long run, with the future health and well-being of your child at stake, it will pay dividends.

- Attendance at either of the parents' drugs and alcohol information workshops is free. Simply turn up at the Friargate Theatre at 7.30pm on Wednesday, January 23 or the following evening.

Updated: 14:55 Monday, January 14, 2002