One of the greatest sources of pain to clean and sober parents is how their addiction impacts their children. We so often think kids don't see or recognize addiction. We underestimate how much children have witnessed and understood. There are many little steps you can take with your children to begin to be the parent they need and the parent you want to be. It begins with talking to them about addiction, recovery practices, and finding new ways of connecting.

In this warm, instructional and one-of-a-kind presentation, Claudia Black offers mothers and fathers a language in which to talk with their kids of any age about drugs and alcohol. She emphasizes that children deserve to understand addiction for a host of reasons:

They may be genetically predisposed toward addiction.

Addiction is a significant part of who you, their parent, is and talking openly about it allows for the potential of becoming closer.

You can help them to understand your behavior of the past and your commitment to recovery in the present.

You can help the child to understand how his or her life has been affected.

Finally, because we live in an addictive culture, your children will have others in their lives who will abuse alcohol and other drugs.

The purpose of discussing addiction is not for them to immediately accept what you say, or suddenly forgive you. The purpose is that you're heard, so that your children will take the information, digest it, and make sense out of it for themselves.

Based on her book, Straight Talk: What Recovering Parents Should Tell Their Kids About Drugs and Alcohol, Claudia addresses the value of talking openly about addiction as a disease, multiple addictive disorders, and recovery practices. This is vital to the healing process of the family.

Recognizing that walking the walk is vital to parents, Claudia presents strategies for reconnecting with even the very skeptical, non-trusting child as well as an adult child.

For parents with children still at home, she identifies protective factors that lessen the risk factors and she offers hope and direction.

Throughout this presentation are five young people, ages seven to twenty-two, expressing common thoughts and attitudes relating to being in an addictive family system.

Preview

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Running time is 26 minutes.

Handout

To further the use of this video, see Helpful Documents at the bottom of this page for handouts that you are free to use with clients.