"Don't do drugs!" OK, because you said so. Meanwhile, my friends, cousins, the world apparently, are all doing drugs. What shouldn't I? It's not like anybody is getting hurt. Bad stuff is just happening on TV. Not in my neighborhood and definitely not with the people I know. So why shouldn't I do drugs? Do you even have a reason?
Yes. Because I want you to give yourselves a chance to grow up. I want you to give yourselves a chance to feel real emotions like love and anger, frustration and rejection without the aid of sedatives to dull your responses or stimulants to make more of issues than needs to be. I want you to experience life in all of its fullness and learn how you fit yourself into it. If you end a relationship, cry through the night while eating a container of Ben and Jerry's with your best friend. Just feel the pain. Allow yourself to experience it and learn how to deal with it. Trust me, the morning will come if you allow it to and you will gain perspective. You will have the ability to handle things and survive them without them crushing you.
I am greatly in fear of all the the teen suicides and think about the causes. Is it because kids aren't allowed to experience pain any longer? Is it because parents attempt to thwart all the negative experiences from their children's lives and then children are left to self-medicate or escape when issues come up that their parents can't shield them from? So when serious issues come up, the kids copy the model - make the bad things go away. When that doesn't work, do the next best thing - you go away. Crazy!! Never give up. Face anything. We are made to handle what is put in front of us. That's when we have families, friends, school, etc. We can't hide from the people we love - we must turn to them and trust that we will be accepted and loved and then we can handle what is thrown our way.
Children are growing up in such an anesthetized time period. If they have a cold, their parents give them cold medicine to take away the symptoms. If they have an issue in school, classes are moved, schedules are changed, conflicts are avoided. If they have no athletic ability, they never need to feel the pain of rejection because everyone is a winner in kids' sports these days.
Where are the life lessons that kids are supposed to be learning? Where are the coping skills and survival instincts that should be at the heart of childhood experiences? In many ways, they are gone and replaced by common sense. Well, it seemed to have made sense when adults tried to protect kids from the pain of life. Stop! Life has pain. The sooner we get kids to accept this and learn how to deal with it, the stronger and more adaptable they will become as grown ups and leaders.
So back to the main issue, telling kids not to do drugs. Who are we kidding? All we do is keep our kids on drugs. We might not be setting them up with a particular drug, but we are their connection. We need to realize that if we are serious about keeping kids off drugs, we need to start with ourselves. And I think if we told kids that we were going to let them experience their childhood and allow them to make decisions, and experience consequences, they would support the change. Children talk about the meaningless of life and want to feel they are in a position of power. Give them a chance to sink or swim. After all, they will have to eventually. Why not let them while the stakes are still relatively low?
So why shouldn't kids do drugs? Because they should have too much to accomplish in their lives and they will need to keep things together to be in control. Let's support hard work and initiative. Let's celebrate children that aren't afraid of failure, but are afraid of not trying. Let's teach our children that to live means to have tried, lost, and rallied to fight once again for what they believe in. Whether this relates to school, friendships, dating, family issues or health issues, it doesn't matter. Learning to be brave enough to face life is a skill that all kids need to possess and they can't get it on drugs.
