by Dr. Marvin W. Berkowitz

I keep seeing public service advertisements that remind parents that talking to their children about drugs is one of the means of preventing their children’s use of drugs. This is indeed good advice.

Part of this effect is simply keeping open the lines of communication with your children, something that is always advisable and tends to produce many positive developmental outcomes, including character.

But another part of this effect is parents staying aware of what their children are thinking and doing.

There is much research on the fact that monitoring children’s activities prevents both misbehavior and mental illness. Parents need to try to be aware of where their children are going, what they intend to do, with whom they will be, what kind of adult supervision there will be, what their friends are like, etc.

Of course this is much easier with younger children. When my son was little, we knew all his friends and all of their parents. After all, they all lived in the area of our local elementary school, a matter of a few blocks in each direction.

And because they couldn’t get around without parents as chauffeurs, we had to be in constant communication for car-pooling, addresses for pick-up and drop-off, etc. There was a network of constant parental communication. One quickly learns not to trust an 8 year old who says “it is okay with my mom that Danny sleeps over.? You call and check with his mom.

But as kids get older, they become more independent. They can get around and make arrangements more by themselves. And they start to resent mom and dad meddling in their mature social plans.

In fact they start to resent mom’s and dad’s very existence. So they resist letting us get involved in their lives, plans, and activities. This makes it decidedly more difficult to monitor their activities.

They also become more socially aware and, unlike little children, actually notice when you are watching or when you are listening or even when you are near enough to come within range. My son went to an 8th grade graduation party that was chaperoned by parents. But the kids had set up an elaborate sentry system to forewarn of the parents coming into the basement, where apparently they were watching pornography on cable television. And this was not even the worst that was going on under the allegedly watchful eyes of the parents.

So you have to try even harder when your children reach adolescence to monitor what they are doing. But it is very difficult.

Here are a few tips: (1) start building the relationship of trust at a younger age; (2) start opening the lines of communication at a younger age and work to keep them open; (3) ask; (4) pay close attention to whatever information you can access; listen carefully; (5) be honest about your desire to know and your reasons and methods for knowing.

Not an easy task, but a necessary one. If you can muster it, then your children are likely to be mentally healthier, avoid dangerous and undesirable behaviors, and to develop good character.

Dr. Marvin W. Berkowitz, a developmental psychologist with expertise in child and adolescent moral and character development, is the Sanford N. McDonnell Professor of Character Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He can be reached at berkowitz@umsl.edu.