Resources

The role that youth drug use plays in school failure, violence, and anti-social and self-destructive behav-ior is well known. It is also known that parents strongly influence their childrens decisions about drug use: parents model substance abstinence or abuse; express attitudes about drugs, alcohol, and tobacco; and control their childrens exposure to drugs by monitoring their activities, behavior, and friend-ships (Cohen & Linton, 1995; Cohen & Rice, 1995). Over the years, hundreds of school and community drug prevention programs for children and adoles-cents have been implemented, especially in areas where social or economic problems seem to stoke experimentation with drugs. An essential component of effective programs is parent participation (along with community and media support), and there are ways to usefully involve all types of parents. Pro-grams involving families not only prevent childrens drug use, but also provide parents with resources that enhance their own lives, and reinforce and increase the benefits of family life overall (Jones, 1997). Also, parents are increasingly acting with each other or independently to develop community drug prevention programs and to provide their children with positive alternatives to drug use. This digest briefly discusses some ways to involve families in their childrens drug prevention education