By Tony Bylsma CCDC*
The future of this planet is in the hands of our
kids, but the future of our kids is in our hands. Just
another obvious platitude? Perhaps, but the statement
is still the truth.
In
the Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention Program we spend a
large portion of our time in front of children. Kids
these days are different from the kids of twenty or
thirty years ago; on the subject of drugs, they are
more informed and less willing to accept whatever is
told to them by some adult.
Something
as important as the education of our youth on the
dangers of drug use and abuse must have impact without
being mere platitude. It is actually surprising when
we find, after a drug prevention presentation, that
the most impressive thing to the students
is the fact that we didn’t try to tell them
what to do. We didn’t try to make them jump in the
direction we wanted and we refrained from giving them
little sayings they could repeat endlessly and which
would themselves become eventually pointless.
Advertisers have known for years how to push an
emotional button in a child or an adult and get a
desired reaction. There is a vast difference between
reactions and decisions. A reaction is something you
can get in a Petri dish from an unthinking fungus; a
decision is entirely different.
We want the kids to act responsibly, yet we
treat them as if they’re not responsible at all. Do
we think that this small human being wants to do
himself in? Has it been that long since we were
children ourselves that we don’t remember being told
what and how to think and how we resented it?
If we continue to apply psychological tricks to
our children to try to get them to do what we want
them to do and in the end complain that they are not
acting responsibly we can only blame ourselves for the
outcome.
To
try and employ ‘emotional triggers’ to get the
reactions we want from our kids is a dangerous tactic.
They must inevitably resent us for trying to rule them
with tricks and end up doing the exact opposite of
what we desired. At the Narconon program, we have had
considerable experience in drug prevention.
Our drug prevention speakers have spoken to
hundreds of thousands of young people from age eight
on up and have diligently surveyed them afterward.
From the mountains of surveys we have collected, one
of the many things we have learned is this: these kids
are young, but they are not insane.
They do not want to hurt themselves. Students
tell us over and over that they don’t want to hurt
their bodies; that their health is one of the most
important things to them and they will avoid doing
something that they’re convinced will be
unhealthful.
It is imperative that we recognize that kids DO
have the power of choice and they will base their
decisions on the information they have and trust. As
adults we cannot control their decisions regarding
drugs. What we CAN do is direct them to plenty of
solid, useful information about drugs and the damages
drugs can do.
If educators and health experts ensure young
people have all the necessary information regarding
drugs of abuse. If teachers and parents make sure that
kids are informed enough to make a decision as well as
any adult regarding drugs, then we’re going to
finally see a reduction in the numbers of kids going
down the road that leads to burned out, wasted
capacities and ruined potentials.
*Certified
Chemical Dependency Counselor
Narconon Drug
Prevention & Education
