When my children were younger, my wife used to have these “magic mommy kisses” that would speed away their pains from a fall. At ages 13 and 9, my children no longer look for mom’s special-formula kisses to come to the rescue (nor my second-string dad kisses), but they still need us, of course, and we still like coming to rescue. With the tragic news about Philip Seymour Hoffman as a starting point, Elena and I had a really good chat last night at dinner about drugs and alcohol and kids, but (for me at least) the respect and ease of the exchange—the quality bonding—came at just the right time and was as important as the information.
My daughter attends a public school noted for its academic rigor, and though she likes it there a lot and feels fortunate to go there, she had an uneven performance on her latest round of midterms and has been feeling a little sad and discouraged. And so we talked about all that at dinner, delving deeper into an ongoing conversation about the satisfactions of working hard, and the challenge of keeping grades (good ones as well as disappointing ones) in perspective.
But my wife was out for the night, and the topic of Elena’s academic challenges didn’t really engage her younger brother, so after a while my instinct was to respectfully change the topic—and Hoffman was on my mind, so I asked the kids if they had heard about it.
Elena had a lot to say; Adam said it scared him to talk about someone dying like that and asked if he could leave the table (unspoken subtext: to play video games). Yes, he could.
And then, wow, Elena and I talked about the power of addiction and scarily addicting drugs. She brought up the risks of “gateway” drugs (Bravo to health teachers and mandatory health classes), and we even talked about the fact that, soon enough, she’s going to find herself at parties where there’s going to be drinking and drug use.
When dinner was over, Elena went back to her studies. Alas, she had to prepare for a quiz in the subject that’s been her number one nemesis this semester. But I think she was calmer and more ready to do battle.
I liked to think that it helped her (and us) to have a calm and thoughtful conversation about a topic that was not about grades but still of deep personal interest to her—a topic that could have been laden with parent-teen unease and misunderstanding.
As I said, I still like coming to the rescue, if that’s what I did.
