Will Your Kid Use Drugs?

What's the news on kids and drugs? Is the battle being won or lost? What's working and what's not? These are questions that researchers into student drug use and wellness concern themselves with. But it's not the questions a parent is - or should be - asking. To them, the only question worth asking is, "Will my kid use drugs?"

As Fred Becker of the Becker Institute in Carlsbad notes, when it's your kid who is addicted, it doesn't matter if the statistics are one in ten or one in a thousand. Still, the trends matter, insofar as they create a culture that reaches into schools. Researchers from the University of Michigan, who have been studying teen drug use and attitudes for 34 years, make it a point to ask kids their perceptions of the risks and social acceptability attached to particular substances. In this way, they can often predict which drugs will be more widely used in just a few years. (For instance, the number of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students who believe ecstasy is a dangerous drug has declined, and sure enough, ecstasy use is on the rise.)

Actually, the overall news on kids and drugs is encouraging. Although use is not as low as 1992, the lowest point in the Monitoring the Future Survey's history, it continues a decline that started in 1998. And drug use among high school seniors is considerably lower than its high in 1979.

The problem with survey measures is that they report what's already happened, which may or may not be useful in stemming future use. And while the questions about perceived risk and social acceptability allow for some intriguing predictions, ultimately every parent's interest is not drug use in general, but drug use as it pertains to one individual - their son or daughter.

So what if we had another tool, one that reflected not what had already happened, but that gave us a good picture of the stuff kids were made of, so as to better predict who they'll become? Enter the work of the Search Institute. I have been aware of Search's framework for healthy child and adolescent development since the late '90s, when I was teaching high school and when our district looked at using their materials with an eye toward improving student wellness. Unfortunately, it didn't go anywhere, because teachers (and I was one of them) tend to be provincial, well aware that the demands they make on students' time are not without competition. The only person with a holistic interest in your child's wellness is - and properly ought to be - you, the parent. Only parents are in a position, as the most willing, consistent, and persistent influences in a child's life, to see to it that kids are on a healthy path.

But what is that healthy path? More to the point of drug use, what do kids need to deter them from being substance abusers? Is it D.A.R.E.? Just Say No? Red Ribbons? Do they need to role play with us how to resist peer pressure? Do they need to be threatened with harsh punishments if they use drugs, and do they need to have their social activities closely monitored to ensure they're not falling under bad influences?

The beauty of the work that Search Institute has done is that it's not narrowly tailored to intercept problem behaviors, yet its effectiveness is remarkable in doing just that. To be clear: what Search has developed is descriptive, not predictive. Started in 1959 as Lutheran Youth Research, its founder was the far-sighted Merton Strommen, who convinced the Lutheran Church to commission a study of teenage attitudes and behaviors. Years later this ongoing effort would become the Search Institute, and its hallmark contribution to child and adolescent development is what's known as the 40 Developmental Assets.

The 40 Assets are experiences and qualities that kids possess (or lack), each of which contributes to healthy development. Think, "How do I give my kid what they need?" and you're on the right track. The assets are divided into two classes: internal assets and external assets. As the names suggest, the internal assets are related to the child him or herself - what do they believe, value, and think about - while the external assets relate to the support structure around the child. Each class of assets has four sub-categories, so that in discerning internal assets, for instance, consideration is given to their commitment to learning, having positive values, having a positive identity, and possessing social competencies. The four subcategories of external assets are support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, and the constructive use of time. Variations of the 40 Assets have been developed for adolescents, young children ages 3-5, those in grades K-3, and kids in middle childhood ages 8-12 (see that list here).

The assets and their effect on healthy development have been studied many times. It is nothing short of compelling to read Search's follow-up research and to see that there is an inverse relationship between the number of assets a kid possesses and his or her engagement in high-risk behavior. Some examples: nearly half of the adolescents who possessed ten or fewer assets reported either using alcohol three or more times in the previous month or having been drunk in the prior two weeks. What percentage of youth who had 31 or more assets did the same? Three percent. Among those with the fewest assets, 61 percent were involved in acts of violence three or more times in one year; seven percent of those having the most assets did the same. 32 percent of the kids with the fewest assets had been sexually active three or more times; three percent of the kids with the most assets had.

The relationship also bears out, but in the positive direction, when it comes to desirable qualities and behaviors. Those with 31 or more assets showed more leadership, took better care of their health, valued getting along with people of other racial and ethnic groups, and got higher grades in school, than kids with fewer assets did any of those things. (By the way, Search's studies also show the average sixth grader possessing 23 assets, and that number declines as kids get older.)

Again, it must be stressed that Developmental Assets are a descriptive measure: Search has isolated some qualities and practices thought to contribute to healthy development, and quantified them, and there is a relationship between the presence or absence of assets in a child and his or her healthy behavior. Assets don't predict drug use, or any other problem behavior. But the relationships Search has demonstrated are too strong to ignore.

Overall, I like Search's approach because it underscores that kids' development is a process that needs to be sustained. Periodic campaigns are insufficient to give kids what they need. The "best" kids (and I use that word deliberately) are those to whom positive practices have been applied consistently, and who are nurtured by people who are interested in them - every part of them. It is a sin that those institutions entrusted with nurturing kids' physical health, their intellects, their moral development, their artistic talents, and their spiritual lives have ended up in competition with one another, each vying for as much time as a family will afford them with scant regard for the child's whole development. Only parents have the clout to turn this ship, and I think the 40 Development Assets are a great game plan for fostering the kind of holistic environments and practices that truly benefit kids.

It's our choice whether to shake our heads in dismay every time some survey comes out documenting the waywardness of youth (the next installment of the University of Michigan study is due in December), or to act preemptively in establishing healthy life skills, attitudes, and supports in our youth and kids. Some people are naively confident that kids' drive to succeed will ultimately steer them away from self-destructive behaviors; the answer, it is thought, is to dangle enough motivation in front of them to turn them into success-driven robots. But others are overly pessimistic about human potential. Christians should be neither. We should harbor no illusions about the power of innate sin to drag us down, but we should honor those elements of our humanity that are capable of doing great good and yearning for redemption. The 40 Assets are an intelligent blueprint for identifying what successful kids have, and pointing us toward what we ought to give.