How I Talked to My Tween About Fentanyl

My script, and how it went down.

I’ve got a dark topic for you this Saturday, folks, and I’m sorry about that. But it’s a really important one. This week in The New York Times’s Well newsletter I explained what you need to know about fentanyl, and why and how to talk to kids about it, after interviewing a handful of experts. Teen deaths due to fentanyl-laced pills have skyrocketed in recent years, so this is an issue that could affect any of our kids. I encourage you to read the newsletter (and this related New York Times story I didn’t write), and also check out my Instagram stories for answers to a couple of questions I’ve been getting.

I know sometimes it can be helpful to hear exactly how other parents broach big topics with their kids. So this morning I sat down with my 11-year-old and talked to him about fentanyl, and here I’m going to share what I said and how he responded. It’s important that we talk to kids — even elementary-aged kids — about drugs because kids who start experimenting with drugs often start in middle school. (This is something I learned from author Jess Lahey in my Q&A with her — I recommend you read that, too.)

I want to stress that my approach is not “the right” one — there is no one right way to have conversations about big issues with kids. You need to use your own judgment as to how to frame the topic, how much info to include, etc, and it’s going to depend on your child, your relationship, and their age. Still, if it’s helpful, here’s how the conversation went down over here, to the best of my memory.

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

Me: I wrote about something this week that’s kind of scary, and I want to talk to you about it. So you know how we sometimes get sick, and we go to the doctor, and they prescribe medicine that we then go and get from the pharmacy? That’s a safe way to get medicine.