Preparing yourself and your kids to make the right decisions doesn’t just happen.  It takes time, patience and practice to “work out” with your kids emotionally, physically and intellectually.

How many times have you rehearsed for a sales call or a presentation?  When you proposed to your wife, did you wing it or practice to get it right?  Would you coach a team and never practice?  Then why should your kids have to go into life's most difficult challenges without some rehearsal time with you? 

Here is a great exercise from the book, Parenting Today's Adolescent by Dennis and Barbara Rainey with Bruce Nygren, that can be modified to use with kids of any age.  Since children are emotionally immature, preparing them for life's tough questions is a great way to give them some experience.

To test their convictions and character, ask them these questions:

• What would you do if you found yourself in a situation where you were encouraged to take a drink or a smoke?
• What would you do if you were shown pornography or a gun? 
• How would you handle your friends offering you drugs or egging you on to steal, cheat or lie? 
• How would you respond if your peers tried to pressure you to go to a forbidden movie? 

There are two key points in this exercise: 

First, be sure to push your child.  Role play in a way that makes it feel real.  We've all been there so ramp it up, and really challenge them.  Second and most importantly, if they struggle with the answers to these questions, then reverse roles and let him hear the answers from you.