This is an accessible, authoritative, comprehensive and well-written text, which aims to guide parents in how to approach their children to have conversations with them about (illegal) drugs. The book is targeted at both parents whose children are not yet using drugs or who are new users, as well as those whose children are showing signs of problems associated with their drug use. Divided into eight main chapters, the book is packed full of information about drugs (including a chapter devoted to the recent upsurge in synthetic drugs), drugs and adolescence, drugs and the brain (a digestible diagram might have made a useful addition to this chapter!), detecting drug use and treatment/recovery. The information is presented in an easy to read and understandable format and is well referenced. I liked the key messages boxes, the tables and diagrams, the colour section, and the stories about young people (all clients of the author over the years) which are distributed throughout the book. I did wonder whether a section on naloxone might have been helpful as it is inevitable that some parents of children who are using heroin may wish to consider training in its administration to respond to an overdose. Furthermore, given the stress and trauma which many parents will experience when a child uses drugs, I thought that the very last paragraph of the book, about encouraging parents to seek help and support for themselves, could have been expanded, potentially even warranting a longer section elsewhere.
If I were to have one criticism of this book, it would be that I was left somewhat disappointed by its balance. I was expecting, because of the title, more content related to the conversations which parents may want to have with their children, whereas this was largely confined to one chapter and included only two “role play” conversations between a parent and their child. This is a shame as these role play conversations were excellent and the 10 guiding principles to having such conversations were helpful. Perhaps Chapter 7 could also have included some sample conversations, and maybe the conversation aspects of the book could also have been included throughout some of the other chapters covering, for example, how to approach a young person about wanting them to take a drug test[s], how to explain about drugs and the brain. Further examples might also have considered how conversations might differ for each of the main groups of drugs and by other factors such as the age of the child. I was also somewhat surprised that the author chose to largely exclude alcohol, although he makes clear early on that much of the conversational guidance could equally apply to alcohol as to drugs. However, while largely agreeing with this, I wonder if the confidence and willingness of parents to have such conversations might be somewhat different, and whether the conversations themselves might also need to be different, given the high levels of alcohol use (recreationally and problematically) in the adult population, including among them a number of the parents who may well be readers of this book.
Overall, this is an extremely useful and engaging book, useful for parents (or indeed those who have the primary caring role for one or more children, such as grandparents or foster carers) in their own right as well as a resource for a range of professionals to recommend to parents. A key challenge is to ensure that the book is marketed in such a way as to ensure that it reaches the parents who are its primary target audience.
Lorna Templeton
Independent Research Consultant, Bristol, UK
Email: [email protected]