Teach our children the dangers of drug addiction.

Many a time, I have shown how the whole world can be the audio-visual aids for our children to learn and improve themselves.. Is not this a wondrous thing?

The world is also full of bad influences for our beloved children. However, what is bad can be turned to good use. Take for example, drug addiction.

Where I live, there was once a family who had one of their children struck down by such an addiction. The parents were good, hardworking people. Unfortunately, no one warned them of the dangers of not bonding well with their children. Despite that, with the exception of this one child, their children did quite well, working just as hard as their parents to earn a good living. Of course, the neglect in bonding did result in some damage and none of the children did well in school, mixing with the wrong people when they were young. They were lucky that only one of the children fell into the drug trap, never able to escape from its deadly grip.

As a parent who believed in using the environment and its many possibilities as aids in teaching, I did use the poor addict as a living example of what could eventually happen to someone who becomes addicted to drugs. Well, at least, he serves a good purpose to society as a lesson for others.

That is not to say that I allowed only the worst possible eventuality to be my teaching. In fact, I did do my part to help. I was friendly with the young addict. He was a friendly addict, greeting me often. There were times, the young man approached me and I would talk with him, sometimes going into his problems. I often stressed that he should feel lucky that he had a brother who cared for him. On his part, he should strive to overcome his problems. I let him know that I was willing to help him if or when such help was needed to rid himself of his problem.

In fact, the elder brother was very caring. He did put him in for rehabilitation. After anumber of years in rehabilitation, he was allowed to return to his brother. However, those who peddle drugs never allow a ‘customer’ the chance to be free of his addiction. On bikes and cars, they would come to his house to lure him away from his home so that they could break down his restraint from drugs. What his brother did was to take him to wherever he needed to be himself so that such destructive forces had no opportunity to move in. And most of the time, the elder brother even chained his left leg to the right one so that he could not speed out of the house the minute someone outside gave a signal for him to be smuggled off to unsafe territory. The brother did a lot for that brother of his, even to the extent of being thought cruel to have him chained thus.

A few inevitable times, this chained brother did manage to disappear before he was noticed by the family. The poor brother had to hunt all over, in almost every addict's haunt for that brother of his.

Whenever my children see this addict, I would explain to my children why the family had to put chains on him, why the poor brother had to run out to search for him and how drugs can cause such misery not only to the addict but also the whole family.
There was once this addict saw me and stopped my car. I asked him what he needed. He asked for money. I knew from the brother that even those pushers would not supply if there was no money. I knew that it would be wrong to give him any. So, I told him a necessary lie. I told him that I have finished all my money except for a few coins in my trousers pocket.. I could not persuade him to return home. So, when I reached home, I telephoned his brother.

Eventually, this addict rode a motorcycle and had an accident. According to the doctor, his bones were so brittle as a result of drug-taking that he died as a result of the impact.

I told my children about his death and how death was partly due to drug-taking. Such incidents ought to be used by parents to teach their children the dangers of drug-taking. And if we can show them the body of the dead person, that visual impact can help drive in the very essential knowledge of such dangers.

Parents can prevent cigarette smoking!

As I teacher, I was very concerned about my children's health, especially those of my gymnasts. One of the devil's tool in bringing down the good health of children is cigarettes. (In an earlier post, I had written about one of my promising gymnast's fall from possible fame.)

One of the things I used to show my students in order for them to understand the effect of cigarette smoke on their body was to light a candle or a kerosene lamp. A glass funnel is then place over this light. After some time they can see a thin layer of smoke stain on the glass. I asked them to imagine what would happen if the funnel were their throat and lungs. With the funnel, we can use a soft brush and sop to clean the stain off. Can we push a long enough brush down our throat and into the lungs to remove the stain?

I would also point to the yellowish stain on smokers' fingers and teeth. with merely a little smoke grazing the nails and teeth, such yellow stains can be seen; what about the amount of smoke puffed into the throat and lungs?

Another object I used to demostrate this was the wok. I would show them the bottom of the wok and asked them whether they know where the thick layer of black soot came from. Yes, most of them were intelligent enough to know it came from the smoke. Well, what about the smoke that goes into the throat and lungs of smokers?
After years of smoking, how thick would it be? Would it not caused the air-passages in the lungs to be narrower limiting amount of precious oxygen bearing air reaching the various organs and cells of our body?

When it came to my children, I am a walking example of a healthy individual who does not smoke.

Whenever we found smokers around, I reminded them of the foul tobacco smell and got ourselves to move away from such a lousy smell.

Sometimes, it was just impossible to avoid such cigarette smoke. When it happened, I would have my children be aware of the foul cigarette smell on our clothes. How can anyone be comfortable with such a smell emitting from a person while the rest of the world bathe often to feel and smell clean and fresh while some even use mild perfume to have themselves smell presentable.

The above methods were used by me to educate my children on cigarette smoke with success as they do not smoke, and nowadays they are the ones who pull me away from smokers.

I did tell them about my once promising gymnast's unfortunate fate so as to have them aware of the results of smoking cigarettes.

There is nothing pleasant about cigarette smoking. And what is important here is that it is the truth. A first timer at cigarette smoking would cough and choke on the smoke. It would definitely be unpleasant. With the above awareness in place earlier, there is no way your child can take up cigarette smoking.

Well, the danger is out there, for cigarettes can lead to other drugs. Plan to overcome this danger and awareness removes it from our children.