There is no gentle way for Ashley Schenck to break this to us. We may indeed be the all-knowing parents of the millennium generation, enlightened and alert and heard it all before. She may indeed be just a 16-year-old from Lincoln, Calif.

But, still: this idea of talking to our kids about the dangers of drugs? We’re missing it possibly missing it badly, and almost certainly missing it more than we think we are.

“Parents, in a lot of ways, are not necessarily in denial but something close to it,” says Schenck, a high school senior. “You can’t just tell your kids once about drugs. When you tell them just once to clean their room, do they clean it? Parents have got to get over that.”

Research indicates that Schenck couldn’t be more correct. Some 98 percent of parents report that they’ve talked with their children about drugs, according to a 1998 poll by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. But only 65 percent of teens can recall the conversation, and only 27 percent said they were learning a lot at home about the risks of drugs.

Other studies in recent years have yielded similar numbers. The canyon between perception and reality is a wide and dangerous one, and it has been known to swallow whole families.

“Children are generally doing drugs, smoking marijuana, at twice the rate that parents assume,” says Tamu Mitchell, director of research and knowledge development for People Reaching Out, a group that specializes in substance-abuse prevention and education. “I think it’s very hard for parents to imagine, for example, that their 12- or 13-year-old may be beginning to smoke marijuana or drink, because they’re still (the parents’) babies.”

Not our children, though, we say. Our family is different. We have a wonderful relationship with our kids. They wouldn’t dare use drugs; they know how severe the punishment would be.

We satisfy ourselves of our own parenting prowess and move on. But maybe, the experts say, we should stop long enough to ask ourselves some objective, telltale questions.

The startling truth

Have we talked to our children this week in any way about substance abuse? Have we asked our children what they know about drugs, talked about specific drug dangers? Have we resisted the impulse to say simply, “Don’t do drugs, or else”?

If our answer is “no” to any of these, then the startling truth is this: We, the all-knowing parents, are increasing the likelihood that our children will use drugs.

“Parents really want to distance themselves and say, ‘That’s not my kid,'” says Toni Moore, alcohol and drug program administrator for Sacramento County in California. “We’ve got to think more in terms of harm-reduction strategies for our kids.”

Experts agree that parents are far and away the greatest deterrent to their children using drugs and alcohol.

Children who learn from parents about the risks of drugs are 36 percent less likely to smoke marijuana than children who don’t, 50 percent less likely to use inhalants, 56 percent less likely to use cocaine and 65 percent less likely to use LSD, according to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Those crucial conversations, however, cannot bud without a proper environment. And virtually every anti-drug organization in the country stresses that the proper environment can only be created one way: through “hands-on” parenting.

Hands-on parenting is not necessarily a popular thing particularly to those being parented. Most teens and tweens have a remarkable instinct for keeping us out of their business, for resisting rules and parental monitoring, for going where they want, hanging out with whomever they want and listening to whatever they want.

Our job is to trust our instincts more than theirs.

“Some parents are afraid to be hands-on because they’re afraid it’s going to damage their relationship with the child,” Mitchell says. “Nothing could be further from the truth. The more hands-on you are, the more you show them that you care and that you’re going to be there.”

Maria Santos of Fair Oaks, Calif., can bear witness. She decided very early to take a hands-on approach with her daughter Felice, now 16, and son Leland, 11.

“I know their friends. I know their friends’ parents,” Santos says. “I tell (Felice) that any study groups are happening here at our house; they’re not happening at anyone else’s house. People call me strict or overprotective. If that’s what I’m labeled, I’m fine with that.”

Another way of caring

It’s not just about monitoring teenagers or keeping them accountable. According to Mitchell, hands-on parenting has a way of creating conversations. And the more conversations we have with our children about everyday things, the more comfortable our children will be when it’s time to talk serious issues such as substance abuse.

“Some parents, they just want to be popular with their kids. They don’t want to be the bad guy,” Schenck says. “But they have to get over that. That might even include sneaking around a kids’ room or something, but the point is that they need to care enough to be involved.”

The drug conversations themselves can take any number of forms, depending on a child’s age and personality. A 15-year-old doesn’t need to hear the basics on drug temptations; almost assuredly, he’s already made choices about drugs on numerous occasions. A 6-year-old doesn’t need to know the consequences of using Ecstasy but can learn a lot about peer pressure and making the right, courageous choices.

Many parents wait too long to talk with their children about substance abuse.

“Who looks at their toddler and has the thought of drug prevention? You just don’t do that,” Mitchell says. “But you need to have a groundwork for the conversations that are coming later. Talk about somebody smoking a cigarette on TV ‘Is that a good decision? Why not?’ If you don’t lay some groundwork, by the time you have those conversations, you may not be doing prevention anymore. You may already be at a stage of intervention.”

School and media anti-drug campaigns can help, to be sure. But they won’t ever pack the wallop that parental conversations can, should parents choose to flex their conversational might.

“You know, I never had a Big Talk with my kids,” says Santos, the Fair Oaks mother. “There is no Big Talk. This is a process.”