Nobody hates talking frankly to children more than their parents — and nobody but their parents have more incentive to tell a convenient lie. It’s not a secret, but it is a noble lie that sacrifices honesty to achieve harmony. You may not have the answers you need, or you might prefer to keep quiet. Or, perhaps it is already nine o’clock on a Monday night, your kitchen still looks messy and you want your child to read an existential essay before going home. You take the easiest way and invent something. They are cheap victories that will only be remembered in the short term.
All the above applies when talking to children about cannabis. In an age when tens of millions of American adults have access to recreational marijuana — and may even keep it in their home, a home they share with children — and when there is growing acceptance (and factual data supporting it) for providing medical cannabis to children suffering from specific ailments treated with cannabis, it behooves everyone to be honest, immediately.
It is important to first educate yourself on the science of cannabis
If you are over 30, you should also be honest with yourself, being the victim of years of anti-cannabis propaganda told to you by parents, teachers, and other authority figures you let you down. This simple maxim — tell the truth — is Elizabeth D’Amico’s strategy for talking to children about cannabis. D’Amico’s strategy for talking to children about cannabis includes a simple maxim: Tell the truth.
D’Amico works as a psychologist and researcher for the RAND Corporation. She is also the lead author of “Planting the Seeds of Marijuana Use,” a recent study that examined the effect of medical marijuana advertising on impressionable youth. Her and other researchers found that the constant bombardment of billboards, print advertisements and television ads leads kids to believe that marijuana is generally safe and beneficial.
It’s mostly true. Cannabis does appear to be a safer choice than alcohol or tobacco, according to a 2015 study published in Science Reports that included research from decades of related studies.
“If you say something is bad, that’s not giving them the full facts,” D’Amico told Westword. D’Amico, who is the mother of 2 teens, lives in Los Angeles. The area is heavily populated with marijuana advertisements.
At all times, D’Amico told the newspaper, the mission of a parent around marijuana is to encourage teens to “make a healthy choice by really talking to them about all sides so they can ask questions — and when they do, be honest about it. Because if you just tell somebody, ‘Don’t do it,’ we know that doesn’t work.”
To Tell the Truth, You Must Discuss Cannabis’s Appearant Medical Benefits For Some Children
D’Amico shows a common problem faced by both adults and teenagers when talking about cannabis: it’s not so simple to say that children can’t use cannabis responsibly but adults can.
D’Amico said to Westword, “Yes, the benefits are for adults, but there is no medical benefit shown in adolescents.” There are no medical benefits for adolescents.”
This is a surprising and troubling claim for a researcher to make, unchallenged, and it is one contradicted by some scholarly evidence, as well as heaps of anecdotes.
Cannabis-derived medicines are helping many kids with seizures and with autism, just as they are helping adults — because that’s the thing. Children and adults are humans with the same brains, and both have human bodies. The idea that a 17-year old child is missing an endocannabinoid, which then appears mysteriously when the child reaches voting age does not have any basis in fact. It also contradicts what pharmaceutical companies know — but it may be what you, the parent, “know” based on your own indoctrination and conditioning.
What you need to know is that your child may ask questions regarding marijuana. Be honest and admit your ignorance when it arises — and then correct it. It will take some self-reflection, but the effort will be worthwhile. The kids will eventually find out if you tell an old, untrue lie.
TELL USHas cannabis been discussed with your child?