If you have a baby or toddler, it's especially important to not use drugs or alcohol while you're caring for them. I personally recommend, and I'll talk about this more in the next lecture, but I personally recommend not drinking or doing any drugs while your baby or toddlers awake, or while you have to care for them. This is because studies have confirmed that even babies know when a parent isn't in their right state of mind. When you're not sober, you're not parenting at your best even if you think you are. It's dangerous to care for a baby while drunk or high for the obvious reasons. But from an emotional level, it's just as dangerous.
Even if you think your baby or toddler won't remember subconsciously, they know. That's not to say that what you've done in the past can't be fixed because it certainly can, like I talked about in the previous lecture, but it is to say that if you have a baby or toddler and you don't stop to try to to correct your own behavior, it won't get easier as they get older. And in fact, as they get older, four to five years old, they'll start to certainly connect the dots. It's best to start change now and start good habits from as early as possible. And if now is your earliest, then that's okay. Once your toddler starts to talk, it's important to keep communications open and age appropriate.
It's never cute to give kids a taste of beer and laugh. Trust me. We've either all done that as a child or know someone who has and yes, it might be cute to see their cheeks puff up. But what it does is subconsciously It teaches them that drinking alcohol is funny and light and it comes with no consequences. As your child starts to ask questions and talk to them about it, you can say like some people drink beer and it makes them feel funny and could make you really, really sick. Especially if you drink too much.
Never tried to push the push the conversation under the rug, though, just keep talking about it. And we're going to talk a lot about communication here in this course and what to say. But first, let's move on to the next lecture where I want to talk a little bit more about leading by example.