Not the stereotypical Aspen family, neither owning a private jet nor having a nest egg of funds designated towards exotic adventure trips, humanitarian explorations or top notch sport camps, my husband and I decided to have an unscheduled summer for our three boys. This was back in 2012, just when Colorado Amendment 64 was being passed.

At the age of thirteen anything alluding to the idea of adventure or hiking brought forth a litany of grimaces and rejections and so our freestyling son’s summer consisted of hucking off ledges at the Aspen skateboard park and throwing mistys off of the Stillwater bridge into hypothermic waters. It was all a recipe for disaster, but at the time we trusted them all and wanted them to have their freedom.

Soaring into Aspen High School like a gorgeous, scaly, charcoal-black dragon with leathery wings, Brevitt discovered his “Herb Tribe,” as they called themselves. Together, they puffed out sparks of fire and herbal-scented smoke rings.

One evening, as Wade and I lay in bed reading, I received the comforting text that Brevitt was home in time for curfew and all was well. Immediately following came the second text meant for a friend, “Hey, we smokin’?” it read. Wade just laughed naively, stating that I was being messed with, but I knew that it was time to shut this shit down. 10 something years later, Brevitt confessed that he thinks a friend of his took his phone and texted me to be funny.

Wade is similar to our Brevitt: positive, funny, and the life of the party. He’s also a badass, yanking out loose teeth at any given moment and digging splinters and infected wounds out of his skin with a pocket knife. But when it comes to our sons, he’s a pussycat whose boys run when they see him coming when their teeth are ready to be pulled.

I, on the other hand, am bad in very different ways. Just as our boys can vacillate between adorable and zombie-like monsters at any given moment, so can I. Luckily for them, I am always looking for the story, which helps when, at the height of my frustrations, an image of myself flying around the room on a broom while laughing hysterically and throwing smoke bombs helps to dissipate my anger.

An intuitive bull in a china shop who often cannot finish all of the creative projects I have started and who cherishes living in the moment rather than spending my life cleaning, I am what you might call a present mom, which can be pretty annoying and disruptive for the Herb Tribe since I am constantly removing Brevitt from any plans they may sound like they could be dangerous, like have senior girls encouraging him to sneak out at in the middle of the night and have them drive him to a party in the woods. I think I’m confusing for the Herb Tribe or just considered to be downright crazy. Known as the strict one compared to the other parents, I can also be known to repeat very offensive lyrics rapping out over our car speakers or break out into embarrassing dance moves. But that strictness earned me losing four years of not being part of his and his friend’s life, a cost I would not want again. Looking back, I would navigate it so differently, encouraging the boys to be at our house instead of unsupervised homes. Truth is, they most likely would have stayed away regardless. We lived downvalley from Aspen, and an unsupervised house is far more fun.

As far as parenting goes, Wade and I have always been on the same page. Solid communicators with good senses of humor, we preferred to talk our way through unnecessary emotional drama and embarrassing public tantrums delivered by the boys. Rather than “time outs” we instead parented by having discussions with a litany of life lessons thrown in. Conversations began early on the importance of abstaining from drinking and drugs for brain development and becoming sweet, responsible, helpful, intelligent, creative and caring gentleman.

But when Brevitt became a teenager, the conversations weren’t working. About the time that walls started to get punched in and our fear of addiction set in I began the process of meeting with the counselors in our valley realizing that the reason why many parents choose to take a big step back in their parenting when their kids turn into teenagers is because the anger is scary and extremely difficult to manage. If there is little discipline and expectations than there is little anger.

One year and six counselors later I found Joel Karr and received a grant from the Aspen Community Foundation to pay for his services. When Joel first came to our house I worried that I had yet again made a mistake. He seemed a bit sketchy at first beginning with how kids have only five rights; shelter, clothing, food, education and to not be abused. A bit shocked, I wondered where he was heading with that but with each session his counter intuitive counseling seeped in a little deeper. Teaching us how to not worry about what could be and putting the accountability on the kid it all began to make sense. His instruction is simply complex instructing kids to choose positive power over negative power and parents to trust that if their kids are giving parents the impression that they are not engaging in anything life threatening or harmful than all is okay. That is, if the kids are keeping their grades up and do not appear to be depressed, using substances or angry, than everything is okay. His framework is seemingly foolproof, if you can allow yourself to really listen and put into practice what he is saying.

In addition, I began a movement in our community. Having unfortunate stage fright that lends itself to fainting at any given public speaking moment, it’s not easy taking charge. What helps is for me to mentally imagine that I am wearing a Stetson, chaps and spurs and riding bronco style into town, all the while chanting an inner mantra in preparation for this new wild west.

Since we have come so far with Brevitt, I want to help empower others to “be the parent”. Using Joel’s techniques, I rounded up a posse and roped in parents to become members of a Parent to Parent Alliance where I encourage parents to establish parameters and consequences chosen together with their children, to be consistent and not afraid to say no, regardless of what all of the parents of your kids are allowing and to unite together to communicate the plans of our teens to ensure that all is copacetic with the believe that together we can change the social norms and raise substance-free youth.

As the word got out about my efforts I often heard feedback on what was holding parents back, “We did it back then, and so we feel that they should be able to as well.” The difference is that scientific evidence now showed that frequent marijuana use can have a significant negative effect on the brains of teenagers and young adults, including cognitive decline, poor attention and memory, and decreased IQ, according to psychologists discussing public health implications of marijuana legalization. Ya think? Let me tell you a little more about what this means, for boys their pre-frontal cortex develops slower than girls so if they slow the process even further through drug use, their executive functioning ability decreases significantly and guess what happens then? Their anxiety increases and then they become medicated to handle that. It’s an evil spiral. Thankfully, if you have tons of money, you can now rewire their brains with brainmapping, but wouldn’t it be better to edit that part out as they grow rather than try to fix it later?

To experiment with drugs and alcohol should no longer be perceived as a rite of passage for teens while their brains are still developing. As the interim Executive Director of now defunct Valley Partnership for Drug Prevention once asked, “Is it a rite of passage to allow your children to shop lift?” Just as you protected your toddlers from getting too close to the fire, it is when children become teenagers where the real parenting begins. The fire is still there, but with far more dangerous consequences.