Planet Youth: The Icelandic Prevention Model

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   The prevention that measurably worked was not risk information but changing the environment: curfews, organised evening activities, parents who talk to each other, and pushing the age of first use as late as possible.

   Planet Youth: The Icelandic Prevention Model · 2009

   A single parent with rules is a defeated parent.

   At the end of the nineteen-nineties Iceland had one of the highest rates of teenage substance use in Europe. The programme did not bet on campaigns but on four ordinary things applied all at once: a legal curfew for minors, public funding of sport and the arts so every child had somewhere to go in the evening, written agreements between the parents of a class about hours and parties, and annual measurement in every school with the data returned to the community. The share of fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds who had drunk in the past month fell several-fold over two decades. What you take from this as a parent without an Icelandic state. One, delay onset: every year gained before the first drink lowers the risk of later dependence. Two, fill the evenings — one organised activity between seven and ten does more than ten conversations. Three, know your classmates' parents and agree the same hours; a single parent with rules is a defeated parent. Four, hours spent with you, counted per week, show up consistently as a protective factor. Five, be explicit that you do not buy alcohol and do not host parties with alcohol for minors, even if others do. Six, on nicotine and vaping the rule is simple: there is no dose without dependence risk at this age, and the flavour is the sales argument, not a sign of harmlessness.

   “We did not try to persuade teenagers not to drink. We changed their evenings: curfews, state-funded sport, parents who know each other. Use fell without a single awareness campaign.”

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