Communicating with Your Child This School Year: Tips to Help

School is back in session now all around the country and your child is dealing with a new teacher, new set of rules, new curriculum and new pressures to boot with all of the new changes. If you're feeling less than pleasant with all the "newness", you're not alone. Join the millions of parents who will undoubtedly feel overwhelmed and seek information to help their children with growing up.

As children grow older and move up the ranks of "grades" in the school system so does the amount of responsibility, accountability, peer pressure scholastic challenges and issues of sex drugs and violence that coincide with their ages.

Sometimes parents just don't know what to do to help their children get over the obvious hurdles and one of the biggest mistakes that parents make is to simply keep their mouth shut. It's even harder on single parents, with limited incomes and those who work more than sixty hours of week because frankly they don't have time to keep track of their kids nor can they can afford for anyone else to.

Even if you fall into the category of "not having time to keep up with your kids", talk to them regularly, even if it's on the phone for the most part. Take advantage of every spare moment you can find and try to find resources within the community to help take some of the strain off of you and your child. Simply not talking about issues relevant with your child's age, geographic location or gender doesn't resolve the issue it simply buries it from the surface.

If you are one of the many parents who really doesn't know what you should be talking to your child about and when, don't feel bad. Parenting is the most challenging position in the world and we all learn new things. Experts actually say that the best time to start talking to your child about some issues that affect children are nearly from day one! It's even recommended that if your child sees a television at the age of one year old that depicts people smoking, point it out to them, show them and tell them that it's bad, the earlier the better.

Children who are between the ages of two and three years of age are sponges; they learn and pick up on everything they see. At these ages, children also become very interested in anatomy and obvious physical differences. Experts agree that this is an appropriate time to talk to your children about the differences with boys and girls, teach them the correct names of reproductive organs and experts claim there is nothing wrong if a child knows they have a penis or a vagina. It's better than they learn from correct usage rather than slang terms.

Kindergarteners should learn about the importance of not talking to strangers, they should memorize their phone number, home address, talk to them about what to do if someone asks them to keep a secret, introduce them to the anti-drug campaign and any local involvement to help teach kids the dangers of drug use.

All through elementary school children should learn about how to help a friend in need, what to do if they hear a friend talking about using drugs or if their parents do. Also what to do if they know about a child who is being physically or sexually abused, explain it to them in an age appropriate way do not be graphic and prepare your child. Talk to your children about drugs and safe sex regularly by the time they are in at least third or fourth grade. Don't short change them either, if you find a book that outlines the birth defects of a baby born from a mother who was a heroine addict then do read it to them, let them know just how damaging the effects can be.

Don't forget peer pressure! Peer pressure could be the number one factor as to why our children get pulled into the world of drugs and so many others. Even though your child has the facts about everything else, they may not know how to handle peer pressure and you can prepare them by acting out real, possible scenarios. Ask your children, "What would you do?"

By the time your children get into high school, they should be almost experts on the subjects that plague their generation if you've communicated for this long. Don't give up though, still periodically talk to your child, and share in their development, and set standards for your children so that the effects of growing up can be lessened. You'll be glad you did.