Just as the title suggests: how do you talk to your kids about cannabis?
I’ll share some of my story: my mother and I recently sat down and had a rather frank discussion. She was brutally honest with me and shared that she had used cannabis regularly during the pregnancies of not only my brother and sister (who are both happy, brilliant, and successful adults today), but she also used it during my pregnancy as well.
Now I had long suspected that my ganja-loving mama had been puffing out during her pregnancy, but she had never confirmed it until recently. She has never really ceased her cannabis use, even to this day…and I couldn’t be happier or prouder of my mom! She is an amazing lady with the warmest heart…I absolutely love her and cherish every day I am gifted with her presence.
I help in the rearing of an 11 year old, and given that her mother and I are both in the cannabis industry, we are very conscious of the inextricable presence of cannabis in all our lives. We are always talking to her about responsible adult cannabis use and she is very understanding and intelligent…however very curious.
I want to know, how do other canna parents raise their kids? How do you approach the topic? Do you keep your green in the proverbial canna-closet? Do you have honest discussions? Do you even bring up the topic? A lot of time kids bring it up first…when did your kids bring up the subject? When is the right age to have the talk?
Wow! Great topic. I have two boys (10 and 7) and I’m still pretty discrete about my involvement in the industry (I tell them I write for a gardening blog ). I’m not ashamed of what I do in any way and look forward to the day I can talk to them honestly about it, but I feel I need to keep it secret so THEY can avoid stigma, say if they were to mention it at school and then the rumor mill gets going, or some less enlightened folks take offense.
I’d like to hear what @everyone else has to say about this
Interesting topic @Growernick. I am the mother of an 8yr old boy and I have to say that I am pretty open with my son, about everything. My husband and I don’t hide our cannabis use from our son. We simply stated it to serve as a medicinal purpose when he asked the question.
When he was younger (about 5), my husband told him we were doing “the papers” to disguise the stigma of the phrase “smoking weed” (to avoid him going to preschool and saying his parents smoke weed), but as he has gotten older we have been pretty open and I tell him that many people smoke to relieve pain (especially women during monthly menstrual cramping). We’ve even told him about how some people use cannabis to tap into their creative neurons (my husband writes hip/hop & r&b songs), and how some people smoke or vape to calm anxiety or even assisting with anger management (in my past behavioral health experience). Lastly I’ve explained how some seniors smoke to reduce symptoms of MS (my grandmother has multiple sclerosis) and any other elderly ailments that try to hinder their mobility.
I believe that we as parents should be able to provide personal or factual based information when our children ask us a question that we were possibly not prepared to answer. It helps open the lines of communication between child and parent and the child will always want to come to their parents for any information that most people try to hide from kids (best to learn from you rather than their friends).
My son receives our “talks” very well. He only responds with, “I can’t wait until I’m 18yrs old so I can try it and see if it works for me.” The good thing is, he understands that he has to wait at least 10yrs to test the waters. However, the not so good thing is he is interested in finding out the affects it would have on him, be it positive to stay active and focused or negative that would make him want to be a lazy couch potato. Lol. Guess we’ll find out… in 10yrs, that is.
Thanks for asking this question! Looking forward to hearing what our other members have to say about this.
I have a 7 year old and my wife and I are very honest with our daughter. She has been around weed and has seen it all of her life. Even when she goes to grandma’s house she is exposed to it whether it be out gardening and tending to the plants, trimming or making tinctures. She knows that we use marijuana for medicinal purposes to help people like her grandma not have to take the doctors medicine. Honesty is key we feel.
We agree with that sentiment: it’s best to be open and honest. It preserves the trust in the relationship and helps demystify the whole cannabis issue. Certain topics we choose not to elaborate, like the functionality of certain smoking devices, concentrates, etc. We also maintain cultivation/extraction/dispensary facilities as children-free zones. We explain that she will be able to visit “the office” when she is of age.
I really believe if we normalize the behavior, reinforce the concept that, like alcohol, cannabis is for adults only – in our case, boring adults! The hope is eventually, there will be no issue whatsoever if cannabis is no longer seen as subversive or rebellious… and kids won even be interested! The kids are not fascinated by smoking your Geritol.
I would like to add this video by @GoddessofPhun to this conversation.
The kids in this short video are the reason why parents should be completely honest with their children about the consumption of marijuana and the effects it has on the psyche.
Not sure if you all watched it or not, but I want to re-post this to shed light on what your kids do to each other when their parents don’t communicate with them and just let them speculate on their own.
This is just it…Once the taboo is gone, minor use tanks. Its inevitable. I wish more understood…
With that being said, my mother and I have landed safe in Vegas. This topic makes me exponentially more excited to meet you all. It seems you all might be my people.
My mother was very open with her adolescent cannabis use, from a young age. Is this what led to me choosing to try it at 10 years old? Maybe. Maybe it contributed. Idk. I’ll tell you what I believe though; it made me more hesitant to try it.
I tried it that young, I think, because my father hated it so much (thus creating the taboo). He would threaten us (little sister and I), etc. - in regards to us considering trying cannabis. We live in Florida…Drugs are everywhere here. Its not a secret young kids can get access to whatever they want here.
Had my father went to prison before I was old enough to consider cannabis, and all I was left with was my mother’s stories (which were morsoe cautionary tales), then I believe I might have held off at-least a bit longer than 10 years old, and so would have my little sister.
TL;DR: My mom’s stories made me wonder. My dad’s threats made me want to try it, to a great degree.
That’s all I’ve got on this subject. I don’t have kids, I am one.
I just refer to them as my plants/crop. My 3 year old (now 4) was calling it weed (my favorite colloquial term) for a few days, so I dialed that back a bit to just “plants”. I can’t find a good way of explaining why he can’t go see those plants. If I do hemp next year, he can see those plants. We shall see how it plays out over time.
I remember my grandfather telling me about be a teenager in the teens or early 1920’s and leaving St. Louis city for the country during Polio season. He and his friends would go to the mearamac area and buy moonshine and weed. Spend a few weeks fishing.
I must have been sixteen or seventeen.
“I remember going to a bar owened by a black man, in that part of the town because that was the only way you could buy the stuff back then. The man who sold it to us would just laugh and laugh about these white boys wanting to buy weed. I think it cost us 25 cents for a quarter ounce. All the guys from St. Louis High School went to the same bar in Merrimack, the sharif must have been paid off. Now let me try that stuff you are smoking, is it as good as what your older brother would smoke? “
My father had a 4 hour lecture on good and bad drugs, when we where early teens. That what you get when you are the son of a doctor. Pot was on the good list. We also learned uses the physician desk reference, so we know what a lethal dose was. All of this was in the late 1970’s.
As for my son we talked a lot about drugs when he was a teen. In collage we both took an ethnobotanty and miciology classes as one of our social science classes.
). I’m not ashamed of what I do in any way and look forward to the day I can talk to them honestly about it, but I feel I need to keep it secret so THEY can avoid stigma, say if they were to mention it at school and then the rumor mill gets going, or some less enlightened folks take offense.
Kareenabis~
Kareenabis~
We shall see how it plays out over time.