Parenting 101

As you all know by now, I have a child who will be entering the public school system this fall. With this huge stepping stone in our lives, there are a lot of things I worry, and wonder about. Over the past few days a lot of new issues have come into play, and I can't help but think they are only gonna get worse, and I know they will. Here are a few new realizations I have had:

1) How in the world do I talk to my child about drugs? I don't really know jack about them. I heard this commercial the other day saying Elementary children have tried drugs or alcohol. I have heard the commercial a million times, but it just hit me the other day. I have an elementary child. Should I start teaching him now? And now they have a whole bunch of street lingo about them, I don't know all that lingo...help! If you have any ideas, please share. (sadly I have a degree in education and psychology, and don't know this stuff).

2) Thankfully, with my degree in psychology, I have been teaching my child different things with sexual abuse/assault, etc. I have been teaching him all the correct lingo for body parts since he was born. Now some people do not agree with this, I am related to some people who don't agree with it. They think these parts should be called a bum, or other "non-vulgar" words. However, after watching court videos of children who were molested who didn't know the correct lingo so the cases were dropped, I decided to take a different, straight-forward approach. However, how do I know if my child really caught on when I was telling him if anyone touches him where the swim suit covers to scream NO and run away and tell mommy (or another adult he can trust). There have been a lot of bad things happening at the elementary level, is my baby ready?

3) At what point should the parent get involved in the child's battles? Should a parent EVER get involved? I know my child will be teased, cuz let's face it, every elementary child is teased at one point or another for dumb things. How do I respond to that? Do I hold him forever and tell him I love him and it doesn't matter what those mean kids think? Do I tell him that's just kids being kids? Do I tell him to tell them he doesn't like that and to leave him alone? If a kid hits him, do I talk to the parent? Or let him duke it out himself? Is everything I have taught my child thus far going to make him the wimp of the class? Or the bully?

I feel so NOT ready for an elementary-aged child. What was the point of all those education classes? They didn't teach me anything about helping my child survive the elementary years. Or maybe they did and I just forgot about it. I even had that parenting class, why didn't it teach me how to survive the elementary years? actually, I think it did...