Parents & Carers' area

Advice and resources on alcohol, cannabis and vaping, including tips to get talking, setting boundaries, the law, hosting parties and where to go for help and support

How and when should you talk to your children about alcohol, cannabis, vaping or other substances?

Parents and carers, in teenagers’ opinion, are the most important influence in their lives through the examples you set, the house rules, the allowance and freedoms you allow them. As your teenagers get older knowing about the law, keeping them safe and setting boundaries are key too. This website gives tips and guidance for you to approach the issue of drinking, vaping and cannabis with your children, teenagers or young adults Talking about choices early on will help your child to understand short- and long-term effects, the law and be to make more informed and responsible choices in the future.

Resources

Our top picks to help you at home

Leaflet

Talking About Alcohol

This booklet gives tips and guidance for you to approach the issue of drinking with your children, teenagers or young adults.

Very young children

11 to 13-year-olds

Older Teenagers

Young adults

Practical ways of delaying teenage drinking

Helpful contacts

Useful websites and organisations to help

With You

Samaritans

Adfam

Action on Addiction

Rise Above

YoungMinds

One Too Many

The Mix

Talk About Alcohol

Talk to Frank

Testimonials

“Thanks for all your and Helena’s organising. It was a very successful evening – we had 45 in the audience and they were highly complimentary.”

PSHE Coordinator

Sutton Grammar School

“Helena, Thank-you so much for last night…. Parents were very appreciative and I think we can build on this for the future…. Once again many thanks for an informative and useful talk.”

PSHE Coordinator

Sir Thomas Rich’s School, Gloucester

“I was delighted with your presentation this evening, you made a very good impression on all the parents I spoke to. Furthermore, both Jo and I thought you had been of great service to the school, and we all learnt something new. Even though we are the ‘experts’, that could be applied to us too, thank you.”

PSHE and Citizenship Coordinator

Alcester Grammar School, Warcs

Helena Conibear has spoken to staff and parents about alcohol on three separate occasions in the past two academic years. We, and parents, have been so impressed with the quality of the information, advice and resources provided by the AET that we have already booked them in for the coming academic year.The talks are always well received as Helena has both a very relaxed yet confident presentation style and quite obviously knows the information and latest facts. This is especially clear in the question and answer part of her sessions where I have only seen calm and informed answers to whatever is thrown at her! Exceptionally helpfully for us, she is also very flexible and will adapt her presentations to suit our needs and requirements. I have also used many of the AET resources when planning the alcohol education module of our PSHE course as the AET’s vision for young people to enter adulthood having a healthy relationship with alcohol ensures that its resources engages pupils allowing them to build the necessary resilience from a position of informed choice

Head of PSHE

Sherborne School

“Thank you for an informative evening with useful facts and tips.”

Redmaids High School

Bristol

“A brilliant video. Thank you for sharing. So enlightening and very well presented… very factual, unemotional and non-ideological, and lots of good content. Very impressed with it.”

Millfield School

Somerset

“Thank you once again for your superb presentation. I have received nothing but great feedback from parents.”

Sherborne Girls School