Originally posted by Cimora:
i severely doubt id have even started smoking if i didnt know every1 would disapprove. I think thats a very powerful thing to a teenager.
(this is a post that i picked somewhat at random since there are a couple other ones saying more or less the same thing...)
although it is definitely true in some cases that disapproval will just cause the kid to rebel, you have to remember that drugs either have or had at least a somewhat significant part in the lives of most of the people posting in this thread - we're not exactly a good sample of the teen/20s population.
personally, for me, one of the big reasons i didn't do drugs or even drink in high school was my parents; i knew that they would disapprove, and yeah, i could sneak around and hide it from them, but i would've felt bad about it. i actually don't even think they would have punished me, but all the same i knew they would disapprove. to be sure, parents weren't the only reason; none of my friends in HS drank or used drugs (a lot of them still don't), which was a factor, but it was a large factor.
now that i'm in college 3000 miles away i feel a lot more comfortable using drugs - i don't tell my parents what i do / where i go on the weekends, and i also don't have to worry about coming home fucked up and either trying to hide it or dealing with a disapproving look...
so i guess what i'm trying to say is, i actually do think parents should express disapproval of drug use - yeah, it won't work with 100% of kids, but it certainly will work with more than 0%.