Youth Alcohol Awareness
This video is prepared with your kids in mind. It can be watched together with your child so that you can both view it, reflect on it and have a chat. I address how alcohol stimulates the pleasure centre of our brain and triggers the release of dopamine which makes us feel relief for a small period (followed by hours of crap) and makes us think we like to drink it!
I have two more videos just like this. One addresses why some adults drink excessively and why our society is obsessed with alcohol and the other is all about how alcohol takes away our fun vibe. These videos are part of my pay what you want Kids & Alcohol course and both are designed to increase alcohol awareness.
I am truly passionate about this topic. I work with parents and teenagers to build stronger relationships and help them navigate difficult topics such as alcohol. Separately I work as a program counsellor for a youth mentoring organisation. So I listen and talk to teenagers – a lot!
I regularly get asked how parents can communicate effectively on this topic so that their kids actually listen. To get to this point we need our kids to have “bought into” our message about alcohol. This is tricky when our kids are moving towards independence and making their own choices.
This is where I can provide some support by way of my online course or one-to-one counselling & coaching which is all about how to connect with your kids so they engage with our message. I invite you to:
I help parents engage their kids on this topic by building stronger connections. I can:
Teenagers want to know fact-based information about what alcohol does chemically to their bodies and why our society and some adults are obsessed with it. I can help you engage them on this topic so that they listen.
Common reasons that parents find this conversation difficult to navigate:
All of these reasons are normal and understandably can make the conversation difficult. Fact-based, honest sharing of your experiences around alcohol rewards you with stronger connections with your kids. We want them to learn and grow from our mistakes.
Topics we we can touch on together:
Workshopping these topics facilitate better quality communications with your kids.
This conversation is not just about alcohol. It’s about balancing your kid’s safety and enhancing the connection you have with your kids so that they don’t shut down and walk away. Opening the door to this ongoing conversation will improve the quality of your relationship with your child. We want our kids to keep coming to us for answers to the big questions. It is also about how to address social anxiety, confidence, self-doubt, build resilience and develop identity.
For more information and resources:
As a kid, I was socially anxious, full of self doubt and was desperately looking for my social tribe when I first came across alcohol. I was ripe for the picking!
Would this conversation about alcohol and its impacts on our brains and bodies together with tools to manage anxiety and confidence have helped me? Hard to say but I’d be willing to bet it would have.
Having this conversation about alcohol with your child takes alcohol’s power away and reduces its allure.
We want our kids to be informed about what alcohol does to their bodies. We want them to know why they see it being consumed everywhere and why some adults seem to rely on it quite heavily.
This conversation is best initiated early when their beliefs around alcohol are forming so that we can help them understand that they are enough with out it and do not need alcohol to have fun, to socialise, to fit in and be confident.
Our kids need to know alcohol comes with risks.
Isabella is a counsellor and coach specialising in both youth issues and alcohol use and education. Isabella can provide you with support and guidance as you navigate this tricky topic. Contact Isabella to learn more.