After 9 weeks of meeting together, we have covered a lot of tough topics in the Parent Workshops. Parents are learning new skills and are feeling more confident in the decisions they make regarding drugs, alcohol, smoking and other risky behaviors for their teens and tweens. Parents have learned:
- New ways to cope with stress
- Techniques for communicating with their teens and tweens
- How the teen brain develops
- Current drug trends
Last week we discussed the "S" word = S-T-R-E-S-S! Participants completed an exercise where they ranked certain activities according to how much pleasure they received from doing that activity. Parents can take the exercise back to their homes and use it with their kids to help them find ways to work out and through stress in their lives instead of turning to alcohol or other drugs.
A family member that is an addict typically brings a lot of chaos into the home and the family routine. Riding this emotional roller-coaster is exhausting! Relationships are stressed to the breaking point and in some cases, cause a break up in the family unit. Often times, the addicted child consumes all of the families resources and there is nothing left to give to the other family members.
Saturday, November 13, we will focus on coping skills for parents and siblings when one or more family members are abusing alcohol or other substances.
For more information, or to register for this FREE workshop, contact Kim Obert at 602-264-5700 or kim.obert@DrugFreeAz.org.
