This is the 10^th and final episode in my series on teen substance use. The series starts with episode 175 and I wrap it up today in this episode 184. And today’s episode will be best understood by listening to episode 183 first because I’m continuing our discussion of the 20-Minute Guide to the book Beyond Addiction.

Last week we talked about some of the basics you need to understand like ambivalence, motivation and managing your own emotions plus some of the communication methods recommended in Beyond Addiction and the 20-minute guide; motivational interviewing and the Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) method. Specifically, we talked about communicating with love, positive communication and avoiding conversational traps.

Today, I want to talk to you about positive reinforcement, parental collaboration and consequences and the role each plays in motivating your teen or tween to change their relationship with substances. Stay with me.

PODCAST INTRO

I want to start today’s discussion with an issue that’s a problem for so many; collaboration with the other parent.

If your child is using substances, it has no doubt impacted your home life – everyone in the household - down to the pets, likely feels the stress. Depending on the intensity of the substance issue, your entire world may be turned upside down.

You’re likely feeling afraid for your kid and at the same time furious with them for putting you and the rest of the family through what you’re going through. You may be running interference between your teen who’s using and your other kids – trying to either shield them from the mayhem or being exposed to the substance itself.

All of that is stressful – but likely the worst part of all is what’s going on between you and your spouse or their other parent.

Parents so often disagree on the most mundane of parenting issues but when you throw in a substance use issue and the stress and emotions surrounding it, it can make the best of relationships take a turn.

When my son was smoking weed and dabbling in all sorts of other substances and behaviors, my husband and I couldn’t talk to my son at the same time without arguing. We had totally different ways of approaching him about everything so we’d be giving each other the evil eye or getting angry with each other when we were supposed to be presenting a united front to our son.

There was a lot of blaming and faulting each other regarding our son’s behavior. I blamed him for not backing me up on my strict rules and consequences and he blamed me for being too harsh and quick to anger. I’m ashamed to admit it, but we were literally at each other’s throats when we were supposed to be helping our son. It’s no wonder things went off the rails there for a while…until I figured out how to reign in my own emotions and approach the situation differently.

One of the best things you can do for your child who’s having these behavior difficulties – using substances – is to work collaboratively with your spouse, your co-parent or anyone else helping raise your teen.

If your child receives different messages from the people parenting them, their behavior will likely continue. As the authors of the book and guide point out, the more ambivalent your child is about their substance use, the more important it is for you to be clear with your expectations – giving them clear directions and consistence consequences.

When you don’t have this alignment, your kid will be too confused or will be able to manipulate the disagreement between you to their advantage to continue using, and you’ll spend more time arguing with your spouse than focusing on them and helping them do better.

You don’t have to agree on everything, but you can at least negotiate and agree on what the policy will be for your kid. Of course, this is all complicated by separation, divorce and blended families. In these cases, it’s probably a really good idea to seek family counseling to work through your differences. If everyone will agree to put your teen’s interests first and put aside grievances against each other, things will turn out much better all the way around. You can listen to episode 161 for a few ideas on how to talk to the other parent to get them on board.

 

Now, the next issue the authors discuss as being one of the core helping strategies in CRAFT is positive reinforcement.

Remember that using the substance has become rewarding and reinforcing for your teen. Their brain’s reward system has latched on to the substance – it feels good to use that substance, or using the substance makes them forget about their stress - and to get that “rewarding feeling” the brain tells them they need to do it again – that’s reinforcement.

In CRAFT they teach you to take advantage of this same reward system in the brain, to reinforce sober behaviors.

So, anytime your teen behaves the way you want them to behave, you reward them in some way. For example, if they come home from a party sober, you compliment them for that, give them a hug. If they choose to stay at home instead of going out to that party where everyone is drinking, you reward them in some way – make their favorite meal, take them out for desert.

Doing this helps them realize they do get a good feeling from not using that substance – from choosing a better behavior and that gives them the internal motivation to behave this way again – it reinforces that good behavior.

You are reinforcing a non-substance-related behavior by rewarding that behavior.

Now you may ask, “why should I reward a behavior that they should have in the first place?” Because you want them to change their behavior, and this is the way to do it – so get over that feeling and move on.

You might also wonder if this isn’t bribery – external motivation – using a carrot to get them to do what you want (so that the only reason they skip the party is to get the nice meal or the compliments, etc.)

And frankly, I see that argument (especially because the authors even recommend using gift cards as one of the potential rewards).

But here’s how they answer that challenge – and it makes sense in this situation: they say that if you provide this external motivation – the positive reinforcement - consistently, it will eventually allow your child to become internally motivated to change their behavior.

Offering the reward for their non-substance-use behavior is what will get them to try that different, more positive behavior to begin with…and as they experience this sober behavior more and more (even if it’s just because they’re being rewarded externally for it), eventually the new, more positive behavior, will feel intrinsically good to them – the new behavior will be reward enough.

That makes sense right?  So, you might say to them, you know what, if you’ll come home tonight without drinking, I’ll make your favorite breakfast in the morning and we’ll go to lunch at your favorite place. They agree and it goes great. You offer the same thing next Friday night – they do it and you have a great time Saturday again. After a few weeks of this, they realize they can skip getting drunk and actually have a great time with you every Saturday, feel better about themselves, and be recognized for doing better – and that it feels much better than getting drunk every Friday night and being hungover the entire next day and feeling disgusted with themselves.

Now, the authors say to keep in mind that a reward is in the eye of the beholder. Find out what’s rewarding to them – even talk to them about it. Time with you may not be a “reward” to your 16-year-old.

You can also, as they say, “look around for rewards they’re already getting that you might want to tie to their behavior.”

You need to also offer the reward immediately after the positive behavior takes place – never before.

And remember that some of the most effective rewards are free or next to it and take little effort or time. Here are some ideas:

A favorite meal, a trip to Starbucks, a sincere compliment, time spent together [if they want that], or extra time alone, if they don’t, your affection, your attention, talking about something they’re interested in, allowing friends to come over, extra screen time, a little surprise like their favorite treat, a nice note).

And you might even consider spending a little money for big accomplishments around their substance use – like paying for a fancy dinner out, a concert, a new video game, a gift card, let them redecorate their bedroom – whatever would be a big deal to them.

But the authors also point out that you need to be patient. Change doesn’t happen overnight. This will still be hard for them. Remember ambivalence – remember that hyped up reward system, their need for acceptance, their potential risk factors (anxiety, ADHD, trauma) – get that outside professional help when you need it.

 

There’s a flip side to positive reinforcement – how do you deal with the behavior you don’t want to see? Or what if there seems to be no behavior to reward? As the authors say, “you apply the same principles of reinforcement, but in reverse.” In other words, positive reinforcement or consequences for positive behavior and negative consequences for negative behavior. And they point out that it takes the combination of both to make the biggest dent in the substance use behavior.

The first strategy they discuss is simply holding back the reward you’d normally give for positive behavior. If you reward them for coming home sober on Friday night by making their favorite breakfast on Saturday morning – You don’t make breakfast for them on Saturday morning if they come home under the influence, Friday night.

But you also have to be willing to flip that switch the other way as soon as you see that positive behavior again – do not punish them for past behavior – do not pout or withdraw affection or rewards when they show you that positive behavior.

As the authors say, “you don’t want to accidentally punish the behavior you want any more than you want to accidentally reward the behavior you don’t want.”

The second strategy (and not mutually exclusive of the others) is to allow the natural consequences that flow from their negative behavior.

As I teach in Parent Camp, most of the biggest lessons we learn in life are through natural consequences. If you’re mean to a friend, they don’t speak to you the next day. If you drive too fast – you get a speeding ticket.

We learn through the natural consequences of our mistakes and poor choices. One of the hardest things to do as parents is to step back and let natural consequences happen.

But when we step in to prevent natural consequences that we should allow, we are crippling our kids – they are not learning from their mistakes – in this case, from their substance use.

The lessons about substance use that they’ll learn through natural consequences can’t be lectured or punished into them – not possible.

So, rather than jumping in to rescue them from their bad choice of using substances, you allow them to suffer the consequences, allow them to feel the heat of going in late for a job (instead of calling their job for them and making excuses) or allowing them to fail that test because they chose to go out partying instead of studying, or let them make excuses to their coach for a missed practice.

This allows them to make the link between their own behavior and the negative impact it has on them. If you remove that impact, why would they not just keep up their substance use?! That’s the very definition of enabling: “softening or removing the negative consequences of another person’s negative behavior.”

Another strategy they discuss in their guide is what they call negative consequences (I call it logical consequences in Parent Camp). And most of what they say matches what I teach.

Talk to your teen about the consequences up front, brainstorm and agree together on what they’ll be for certain behaviors. Make sure you never issue a consequence when either of you is emotionally dysregulated. Make sure the consequence is logically related to the behavior, that it’s not too broad in scope or too long – that it makes sense. If you take something away, they need a clear path in getting it back. And you must enforce the consequence consistently.

In the book, the authors point out that the families they work with at the Center for Motivation and Change in New York City, fall into one of two different camps: they’re either reluctant to let their loved one suffer any negatives from their substance use or they feel like their loved one isn’t experiencing enough of the negatives they should be. As they point out, neither extreme is helpful and any form of actual punishment (including negative consequences that you impose that don’t follow certain guidelines) – will just cause your teen to get better at hiding their behavior, lying about it, rebelling.

There’s so much more in the book, Beyond Addiction and I encourage you to read it as soon as possible if your teen is using substances. There are also more nuggets in the 20-minute guide. And again, I’ll have the link to both in the show notes.

Just remember, you can get through this. Your teen can be okay in the future. Do your best to put your oxygen mask on and stay mentally healthy so you can help them best. Know that showing them love and support when they aren’t, in that moment, using a substance – is not enabling – it’s simply being a loving and supportive parent. Hang in there.

 

Alright, that’s it for Speaking of Teens today and that’s a wrap on the 10-episode series on teen substance use. I hope you’ll let people know about it so they can get something from it as well. If you’re a regular listener, I really appreciate you tuning in each week =  and if you’re new here, welcome, I hope you’ll go back to the very beginning and work your way through the episodes and come back each week for more.

Please consider joining us in the Speaking of Teens Facebook group for a wonderful community of very supportive and knowledgeable parents – the link is at the very bottom of the episode description right where you’re listening now.

And, until next time, remember to connect with your teen in some small way, each and every day.