Addictions in adolescents, how to teach them to bet on a healthy lifestyle
Social pressure, curiosity, rebellion, many are the reasons why a teenager can start drinking or smoking. A decision that, in the end, is revealed as a bad idea with multiple consequences for the person. If in any person the consumption of alcohol or a cigarette affects health, in the case of young people, still to be developed, the effect is even greater.
Betting on a healthier lifestyle is always recommended. To make adolescents understand that the consumption of alcohol and tobacco is a bad idea and that it is always better. Other types of activities are better, it is the mission of every father. Rocío Molina Prado, a psychologist at the Drug Addiction Center of Arganzuela, offers these tips to achieve this goal.
Consumption normalization
Prado warns that the main problem at present is that in recent years there has been a tendency to standardization of these substances in the adolescent population. In this way, a model of youth consumption appears as a form of social relationship, leisure and personal fulfillment.
Adolescent consumption should never be seen as a rite of transition from childhood to the adult stage, but as a public health problem that is reaching "epidemic" levels. Youth is a period of life that presents specific characteristics. From the psychological point of view, it is a stage with a tendency to experiment and minimize the danger related to a perception of control capacity over reality.
Some examples that show that alcohol consumption is harmful in adolescents are the following:
- Weightloss.
- Hypertension.
- Chronic cough.
- Hoarseness.
- Alterations of short-term memory.
- Inadequate judgments.
- Truancy.
Healthy child program
Molina Prado proposes the Healthy Child Program to curb the consumption of these substances in adolescents. Among the recommended actions are the following:
- Insist on the danger of the passive smoker, since on the one hand the children who receive the smoke inspire harmful substances and on the other they see tobacco as an attractive product.
- Creation of an atmosphere of closeness with the adolescent. If parents create a safe environment at home, where children feel safe and trust their parents, they can talk more confidently about these risks and teach safer lifestyles.
- Betting on healthier lifestyles since childhood, presence of sport during leisure time. A practice with dual purpose, on the one hand healthier routines are taught and on the other the link mentioned in the previous section is created.
Damián Montero
