Last night for family night we sat down with the kids and talked about drugs. We started by asking them what they knew about drugs. Sable said cigarettes, and how they made a promise to their PE teacher to never smoke. Lyndall listed off cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine. So scary to hear those words from a 9 year old mouth. He didn't really know what they were just that they are bad for you and you shouldn't do them. We asked if he knew how they made people react and behave and he said they do stupid stuff. Then I asked if he knew what an addiction is. He said yes but he couldn't tell me, so I the way I explained that was that when your addicted to a drug you feel that you must have it and you'll just go crazy if you don't, that's when you start behaving really bad and doing things like beating people up for money and selling your most prized possessions for money like your XBOX and PSP. That did the trick, sell his video games to feel stupid on drugs NO WAY!
Now all that was great for drug talk but we were not done, we went over the difference between illegal and legal drugs and things that aren't drugs at all. Its the legal drugs and the things that aren't drugs that scare me because they are easier to get a hold of in any one's house. We asked him if he knew some legal drugs, like Tylenol, aspirin, and cough syrup. He asked why we give him those, and of course we told him because they are OK if you follow the directions otherwise they can be just as bad as cocaine or meth. We continued to ask him about non drugs, I gave him hint of smelling. He guessed it, he said how kids were talking about sniffing sharpie markers. We talked more about spray paint, and other huffing and what it does to your body. Steve talked about how it suffocates your brain. We also reminded the kids why you don't take stuff from strangers including stickers.
To seal the deal we showed the kids these pictures of drug users, yes we showed Sable too. I wanted a vivid image to be printed in their head to remind them not to do drugs. We also told the kids that they can come and talk to us about drugs anytime. Lyndall's response was, "I thought I would get in trouble if I talked about drugs." WHAT???? NO NO NO YOU WILL NEVER GET IN TROUBLE FOR TALKING ABOUT DRUGS WITH US! PLEASE ALWAYS COME TO US ANYTIME YOU HAVE A QUESTION OR CONCERN.
