Raising Resilient Kids with Jessica Lahey

We were thrilled to sit down with New York Times bestselling author, educator, and parent Jessica Lahey (whose Instagram we may or may not be totally obsessed with) to talk about the powerful role families and communities can play in preventing youth substance use. Drawing from her personal journey in recovery and her professional work with teens in recovery, Jessica shares actionable strategies for raising kids who feel seen, supported, and empowered to make healthy decisions—long before they're ever offered a drink or drug.

Whether you're a parent just starting these conversations or a caregiver looking for new tools, Jessica’s insights from The Addiction Inoculation and The Gift of Failure are practical, compassionate, and deeply rooted in research and experience.

You’ve spoken and written so powerfully about your personal and professional experiences. What inspired you to focus your work on addiction prevention in young people?
I am in recovery from alcohol use disorder, and when I got sober on June 7, 2013, my first thought was for my kids. I was raised with an alcoholic, and one of my parents was raised by an alcoholic, and there’s substance use disorder on my husband’s side of the family as well. I needed to understand their risk and what prevention best practices are. I was also working with kids in a substance use recovery center for adolescents and wanted to understand what we could do in education to prevent my students from landing in recovery. I could not find a book that combined those two subjects, so I researched and wrote it.

What have you learned through parenting your own kids that influenced your books, especially The Addiction Inoculation?
I actually think researching and writing my books has informed my parenting rather than the other way around. If anything influenced my own parenting, it was the fact that I was raised by parents who trusted me, respected and supported me for who I was—not just based on my performance or accomplishments. They instilled a strong sense of self-efficacy and competence in me, and that’s been one of the most important gifts they gave me.

MHYP’s Let’s Talk program helps parents have open, informed conversations with their kids. What are some of the most important things parents should be saying to their children—especially in elementary or middle school—to help prevent early substance use?
As answered above, giving kids a sense of competence (confidence based on actual skills and mastery) and self-efficacy (the belief that if they take action to change their lives or the world around them, they can affect positive change). Supporting the kid we have rather than the kid we wish we’d had—or the kid we thought we had, or wishing a kid could just take a second whack at things we were not able to do as a kid. That goes a long way toward making sure they feel seen, heard, known, and loved for who they really are. Lastly, if we make sure they know we love them for them, and not just based on their performance or grades or trophies or college acceptances, they will trust us when we tell them we love them no matter what. This is the basic, most foundational work we do for our kids in order to prevent them from feeling as if they need to pick up that first drink or drug.

In your experience, what kinds of messages from parents have the most lasting impact on kids’ choices about drugs and alcohol?
When parents ask me if effective substance use prevention means we can’t drink in front of kids, I make sure they know I don’t believe parents have to be abstinent in order to teach kids how to be healthy themselves. What I do stress, however, is that what we do is much more important than what we say. When they see us drink to numb uncomfortable emotions, or they see us use substances to cope with hard situations, they learn that’s how we manage the difficult parts of life. Watch your modeling and your messaging around addictive substances.

How can parents start these conversations early without feeling like they’re introducing scary or inappropriate topics too soon?
The most effective substance use prevention programs start young: pre-K and K. If we wait until middle school or high school, we are missing a massive opportunity to teach kids about the basic bodily autonomy and self-advocacy topics that anchor effective substance use prevention. I have a full range of scripts and suggestions about how to start, but it can be part of tooth brushing (“Why don’t we swallow the toothpaste?”) or practicing reading (“Can you find Mommy’s name on this prescription bottle? Why is Mommy’s name on this bottle? Could you take this medicine if you had the same sickness Mommy has? Of course not—we never take medicines in a bottle like this that don’t have our names on them!”). These conversations naturally lead to age-appropriate topics around things we put in our bodies and things we don’t.

MHYP’s Be The Influence campaign encourages parents prohibit underage drinking or drug use in their homes and to talk with other parents about doing the same. What advice do you have for parents who are afraid of being "the only one" with strict rules?
Buck up and be the parent because that’s what kids need from us. Once I understood what the best practices for substance use prevention are, and had made sure my kids know what I know, to do anything else than be a parent with a consistent and clear message of “No, no drugs or alcohol until your brain is done developing” would mean I was taking the easy way out—doing less than my best for my kids when I know how to do better.

How do you suggest parents communicate clear expectations without damaging trust or pushing their teens away?
Teens, like younger kids, want consistency and clarity from their parents. Inconsistent parenting is confusing and upsetting for them. Set your expectations, detail your consequences, and then follow through—while making sure they understand this all comes from a place of love, support, and faith in them rather than judgment or shame.

MHYP’s Raising the Bar initiate is focused on adult modeling. What are some subtle ways adults unintentionally normalize or glamorize substance use around kids—and how can they shift that behavior?
See above, and also, talk to them about the way advertisers attempt to manipulate kids by establishing brand loyalty early. Ask kids what they think they are being sold in ads, and why alcohol companies work so hard and pay so much money for prime ad space in sports like football. Ask whether they think that has anything to do with the higher levels of alcohol consumption among football players and football fans. (The four highest-drinking athletes and fans are in football, lacrosse, hockey, and wrestling.)

Kids (and adults) often use substances to cope with stress, anxiety, or pressure to perform. How can parents help their kids build real tools for resilience instead of reaching for something to numb the discomfort?
The more kids understand their emotions, the more they can learn to manage them. We need to give them coping skills so they don’t have to turn to substances to check out or dull their feelings. They need to talk about what they are feeling, and if they can’t talk about that stuff with their parents, find them an objective third party they can talk to—like an aunt or uncle, pastor, mentor, therapist, teacher, counselor, or some other trusted adult. They must feel loved, seen, heard, and supported for who they are and not in relation to another sibling or some other arbitrary measure of success.

In your books, you talk about teaching kids how to sit with discomfort and failure. How does this skill connect to addiction prevention?
When kids know they can manage feelings around frustration or disappointment because they have managed them in the past, they are more able to cope without having to check out or numb out. Talk to them about their past successes and ways they have positively dealt with failures and managed to learn from them. Make their successes as general as possible (“I am so proud of you for being the kind of person who empathizes with others and helps them when they need it. That’s what makes you a wonderful person.”) but make their failures as specific as possible (“You say your teacher hates you because you talked over her in class? Do you think if you apologized for speaking out of turn today in class and helped her see you can do better next time, you could turn your relationship with your teacher around?”). This helps them understand their successes are due to deep truths about their worth and merits, and failures are things they can control.

How can parents model healthier coping strategies in their own lives?
I think I’ve mentioned some ways already re: kids, but when adults do make mistakes or find out they need to do better, let kids in on these failures. Let kids see you struggling or working hard to be better, or making amends to those you may have wronged. Ask kids for advice on how to solve problems in your life, and model intellectual and emotional risk for them. Take on challenges, let them see you struggle for hard things, and bring them in to the process of doing the best you can with the information you have—and if you learn to do better, apologizing and moving on with that new information so you can be better.

What role can schools and communities play in addiction prevention, and how can parents partner with those systems effectively?
The more people who buy into community standards around substance use, the more likely kids are to buy into those standards. There’s a reason some countries in the European region (the region with the highest rate of disease and deaths attributable to alcohol) have lower rates of disease and death: effective public health messaging and community standards that don’t consider excessive drinking as normal or healthy. Some countries have dramatically lowered their drinking rates—as well as rates of disease and death—by changing public health communication to include accurate information around the risk of drinking. Canada, Australia, and some countries in Eastern Europe have all turned around or are making improvements in their rates of use this way.

If you could design an ideal community-based prevention program, what would it include?
Starting in pre-K, an emphasis on social emotional learning, life skills, prosocial skills, emotional literacy, self-advocacy around bodily autonomy and individual needs, as well as solid public health messaging around food, exercise, how their brains work and develop, and—as they get older—solid refusal skills and inoculation theory, as well as how addictive substances interfere with brain and body development.

What gives you hope when it comes to the next generation and their relationship with substances?
Sobriety is becoming increasingly accepted as a tool for health and clarity rather than a punishment or life sentence for substance use disorder. Mocktails and non-alcoholic beer are booming as an industry. The kids I’m meeting in schools now are far more emotionally literate and less likely to view gender roles as rules. Boys are allowed to feel and talk about those feelings while girls are learning to stand up for themselves and not default to people-pleasing at the expense of their mental health. While many like to complain about young adults as emotionally fragile, I actually believe they are simply more aware of their emotions and more likely to stand up for their emotional health.

If parents take away just one thing from your books or your work, what do you hope it is?
Parents who have a consistent and clear message that kids should delay their use of substances until after their brains are done developing tend to raise kids with lower rates of substance use—both in adolescence and adulthood.

We’re so grateful to Jessica for sharing her insights, honesty, and hope. Her work is a reminder that prevention starts with connection—and that every conversation, no matter how small, can make a big difference.