Let me ask you something. When you are young, do you know everything? Do you know all there is to know in this world? All the good, bad, and the ugly? No...we don't. As humans, we learn things through what we see in the world, what we surround ourselves with and basically what is in our faces. As children, we pick up our firsts and learn our firsts as well. First steps, first words, first time going 'potty' and all the awesome things we experience as tiny humans, which leads me to the subject at hand and my argument of how these 'say no to drugs' things at school are a little contradictory.
'But Inky! These movements help kids get steered in the right direction and reject peer pressure.'
Yes and no...
Allow me to elaborate. I remember these campaigns, coloring pages and bracelets that my school would hand out every once in a while, to promote YOLO (Or something I don't recall exactly...and this was before my parents began to put me and my siblings in homeschool) and basically 'say no to drugs' you get the gist. But how on earth is a 3rd or 4th grader going to know about drugs? The thought of drugs never even crossed my mind until they began promoting the 'say no to drugs.' Let me rephrase that because that insinuates that I considered using. What I meant to say was the existence of drugs was never in my young mind until school brought it up, which leads me to think: 'How are kids going to know about drugs...?' If you really wanted them to steer clear of drugs, don't tell them about the existence of it! Once you plant that into their mind, they're going to wonder: 'What's drugs?'
Maybe they won't seek out a dealer or do something drastic, but this is putting the idea of drugs in their minds, which may impact them later.
When you're young, when you're told not to do something, 8 times out of 10, you're probably going to try it.
This spikes when you're a teen, you're older and you want to control yourself as a person, speak for yourself and what you want, and find your way. If you tell a teen not to do something, are they really going to listen? (It's not the same for everyone) There's a chance they might not listen to you, and even if they do, there will be the doubt and waning obedience of a natural teenage brain.
if you tell a teen not to smoke or drink, they're probably going to do it. Contributing to this is the teen's desperate want to control their own choices in the period of their life where they're old enough, but also too young, and the allure of rebelling and doing things we know we aren't supposed to, or we really shouldn't be doing. Like that movie Crybaby or Grease both examples of the classic teen rebellion we all know too well. Goody two-shoes girls get allured by the greaser lifestyle, the 'bad boy' archetypes. The 'things they know they shouldn't have' but they do it anyways.
Which leads me to wonder if this is done on purpose, like a false warning, or just a faux caution that is meant to place this idea in the back of their minds. If we really want to keep them away from these evils, don't tell them about it until they're at least old enough to understand that these are bad and harmful to your body. It's like telling children 'Don't drink alcohol!' 'Don't have unprotected sex!' how on earth are children going to know what these things are...unless they're brought up somehow.
I think these topics should be held off until they are at least in their teen years. Dangerous peer pressure is more prominent, drugs can be more accessible to them, and teenagers are obviously more grown and will stumble upon something of the sort like drugs or alcohol.
So, are the 'say no to drugs' campaigns all that useful when being taught to elementary school children? Should that even be brought up...?
Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading it, and as always have a good day🏙️/night🌆!
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