How does your prom story end?

 

 

Prom and safe grad time is here again for another year and as parents if you don’t believe things go on during these celebratory nights, well it’s time to take the blindfold off. I speak from personal experience when I say this and want to remind you to speak with your children about what they may be thinking about doing or not doing. Will this change the outcome, maybe and then again maybe not but do you really want to take that chance and look back regretting not taking the opportunity. Some will say, “it won’t happen to my child”, or “he/she is just not like that”, believe me you do not know all there is going on with your child at any point of their teenage lives. Make sure they know they can come to you good or bad with anything they are going through to talk and that by doing so a punishment that they don’t want to incur would be off the table. So many things have changed even since I’ve gone through this that It actually scares even me as to what a child can get themselves into during a time of peer pressure.  We can make fun of facts such as, well I had a few drinks, smoked a joint, had sex or worse  at that age and I turned out fine. I’m not a prude I can understand that more than you know.  The fact remains that not all of our children are responsible enough to do that and it may not even be them that is the direct cause of the issue. Countless stories through the years I’ve heard of lives lost on prom night or having to live the rest of their lives with making a careless decision. When I say I speak from personal experience, I had a friend whom decided it was going to be cool to have a few before heading into the prom at his school and headed to it on his motorcycle… he never made it. I’ve seen fellow classmates being sent home by police car away from the prom as they were showing up at the doors having already consumed a substance of sorts. I have many years ahead of me before I have to get into this with my daughter, but if I remind one parent to have a chat with their child that didn’t plan on it and it hits home, well then I’ve made a difference. If it happens beyond that as once they leave the doorstep it is the choices ultimately that they will make, then at least it will be something they were fully informed on.