The Manhasset Community Coalition Against Substance Abuse is presenting "Parent Power," a CASA Wellness Week Parent Seminar with David J. Wilmes, the best selling author of Parenting for Prevention: How to Raise a Child to Say No to Alcohol/Drugs and a featured expert on numerous local and national media programs including USA Today, CBS Morning News, and ABC's Good Morning America. The workshop will be held Monday, Feb. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre at the Manhasset Secondary School. "Research proves," Wilmes states, "that parents do have power." The workshop will provide parents with practical skills and research based information to help them learn to use their power to protect their child from dangerous choices such as alcohol and other drugs.

Wilmes, who has written numerous books and curricula, has worked in the area of substance abuse for the Hazelden Foundation, the Johnson Institute, corporations, and the U.S. Air Force. He is now director of services for St. Paul Youth Services in Minnesota. He argues that parents are the ones who can and must take the lead in preventing their kids from getting mixed up with alcohol and drugs. His theme is prevention, but his approach is positive. Instead of threats and warnings, and a long list of don'ts, Wilmes offers a way to raise children who can say no to alcohol and drugs by teaching them specific life skills.

Wilmes has worked in the field of substance abuse since 1971. He began writing Parenting for Prevention after seeing how little is done to prepare people for being parents. "Why wait until kids have an addiction to address parenting skills?" Wilmes asks. The book first came out as a manual to teach parents. "There are very few folks working in addiction who haven't been an addict," notes Wilmes. "I haven't. It was natural for me to think from a prevention point of view."

In his thoughtful, reasoned book, Parenting for Prevention, Wilmes does not offer quick fixes, but discusses the foundations for teaching life skills and then how to teach these skills to our children by offering an amazing amount of concrete information. He offers a job description for parents and one for kids as well. A parent's job, Wilmes states, is to offer children security and freedom by setting clear, appropriate limits and enforcing those limits by modeling, checking compliance, and carrying through with consequences. Wilmes will discuss how young people's use of alcohol and other drugs can progress from misuse to addiction even though as parents we believe we're doing what is best. He will also talk about the difference between being our kid's friend and being a parent and how to ensure that we're their parents first and foremost.

"It is difficult being a kid today," asserts Wilmes. "They are faced with more high-risk situations and less parental involvement." He believes the biggest problem children face today is that parents are not involved enough with their children. "It takes time and attention to be connected with your child at every stage. Parents might think that babies and young children need the most attention, but parents underestimate how much kids need us in adolescence even though they insist that they can take care of themselves. There are many types of addiction," says Wilmes, "but most all stem from unmet needs. The upper middle class syndrome, for example, is 'work hard, play hard.' Work hard to excel at every possible thing. Alcohol is used as a way to condense relaxation into a short amount of time. Self-approval: this is still really the unmet need, though," claims Wilmes. "This is where parents come in. Kids want their main validation from their parents." He added that in this pressure-cooker culture, parents need to retreat from this and communicate it to their children. There is pressure to be more than anyone can humanly be, he stressed, and parents need to march to their own drummer and tell kids they can't do it all.

Please join us at this workshop. For more information, contact CASA at 267-7548 or visit www.manhassetcasa.org.