Are you "Maria goes with the others"?

My grandmother used to say, "Who mixes with pigs, bran eats."

And we have the translation of Psalm I that says, "Tell me who you're hanging out with and I'll tell you who you are."

Rodrigo Flaire and Claudemir dos Santos, in this video, want to talk about it!

A scientific research, with methodology on "The influence of friends on drug use among adolescents" was developed by 2 researchers from USP - University of São Paulo and the scientific article was published in 2014 showing how to quantify this influence.

Really, friends involved with drugs influence our children? How do we understand this relationship of friends and the influence on my son's upbringing?

In this study, researchers were able to do some probability calculations and were able to establish how many more chances a teenager has of using or trying drugs when he has friends with some drug-related variables:

If a young person has a friend who uses drugs regularly, he is 3.4 times more likely to use only alcohol, 4 times more likely to use only tobacco, 7 times more likely to use alcohol and tobacco, and 8.6 times more likely to use illegal drugs.

Now, if a young man has friends who sell or give drugs, he has a 10 times better chance of using some illegal drug.

If a young person has friends who take alcohol or drugs to parties, he is 5 times more likely (compared to a young man who doesn't have such friends) to use only alcohol or tobacco, 6.7 times more likely to use alcohol and tobacco, and 15 times more likely to use illegal drugs.

And if he has friends who steal other people's property, he is 8.6 times more likely to use illegal drugs and 4.3 times more likely to use just alcohol or just tobacco.

This study has other very interesting variables that make us realize how much these "friends" can influence our children, our students, the children and adolescents that we care for.

And what can we do in practice?

First we need to know who these friends are, their families, their values. Bring friends closer to us, observe. It's very important that we know what's going on.

Our children's friends have a lot of influence on their thinking and opinion, and this can lead to a not-so-positive change, especially in relation to the beliefs and relationships they have about drugs.

So if you want your child away from drugs, it's important that you be active in his relationship with peers. Always prevent!