Taking the long way home to avoid bumping into drug pushers, gang members and/or bullies, is not just the stuff of American commercials anymore.It’s also a reality for many children and teens living here.According to mental health specialist Frederick Dyer, parents need to understand that these types of stressors exist in order to help prevent their children from becoming drug or alcohol abusers.Dr Dyer has concentrated his energies in the area of drug and alcohol abuse in children. Based in Chicago, Illinois, he is a counsellor and trainer on the topic.He recently delivered a training session in Bermuda where he explained how parents can build resiliency in their children around alcohol and drug abuse. The session was sponsored by the Department for National Drug Control.“It’s about prevention. Prevention is about saving lives,” said Dr Dyer. “Kids nowadays have to worry will they run into a gang member, so what we all do with children matters.”He said it’s important to recognise that substance addiction is a biological problem.“You can’t just think of addiction as a social issue,” he explained.Drugs like dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain which is linked to learning through use of rewards, replace the body’s natural messengers, Dr Dyer said.Many illicit drugs replace dopamine in the brain, causing the person to experience an altered state of reality. Even more concerning, they disable the natural learning process.He explained that the physical effect of alcohol and drugs on children and teens is greater because their bodies and brains are still developing.According to Dr Dyer, the part of the brain that allows us to recognise future consequences from current actions, is not fully developed until the age of about 26.The frontal lobe of the brain controls reasoning and planning. It allows us to determine and choose between good and bad actions, or better and best actions, override and suppress unacceptable social responses, and determine similarities and differences between things or events. Therefore it is integral for higher mental functions.It is also important in retaining long-term memories, in particular, memories associated with emotions derived from input from the brain’s limbic system. The frontal lobe modifies those emotions to generally fit socially acceptable norms.However substance abuse impairs the limbic system through its replacement of natural neurotransmitters like dopamine.This is what is happening when you see an intoxicated person behaving in an uncharacteristic way - maybe stripping in public, fighting or yelling or even being too romantic.The challenge for parents is that because the prefrontal lobe is not fully developed, their children often don’t have the capacity to make good decisions.In his training session Dr Dyer stressed the importance of parents being involved in their children’s lives, talking and listening to them and understanding the stresses they face as children and teens that are enticing them to experiment with drugs and alcohol.He said teens use drugs and alcohol for three main reasons: peer pressure, experimentation and as a coping mechanism.“Teens are finding themselves and asking the question ‘Who am I? Who am I culturally? Who am I in terms of gender? Who am I in relation to my family?’,” he said.“We need to help them to think and give them good experiences.”