Drug Abuse Awareness - The Drug Abuse Awareness Program In Schools Are Appropriate To Adolescents

Adolescence is actually the time for various newly testing and trailing. It is the obligatory developmental process in achieving independence and proficiency in a number of areas. And young adulthood or the adolescence is also a volatile time, with intense social and school pressures, and risky behaviors people do actually not like to think their kids are engaged in. Taking addictive drugs, drinking alcohol and using tobacco are some of these. A teenager is more likely to die from an alcohol-related situation than any other cause, and that includes car crashes, unintentional injuries, murder and suicide.

How do people talk to their youngster or teen about drugs and alcohol! What will make the difference between healthy growth and behavior, and youthful alcohol and drug abuse! People can take a look at drinking and other addictive use among adolescents today, the importance of parental awareness and communication, and the roles of school, peers and community in prevention. The earlier a child gets into addiction, the greater the risk is for that adolescent to become alcohol dependent at some point.

The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recently conducted a survey on adolescent addiction which found that kids who started drinking before age 15 were four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who began drinking at age 21. In general, the risk for alcohol dependence or drug abuse decreases by 14 percent with each increasing year of age of drinking onset. When there is a family history of drug addiction or alcoholism, there is some genetic predisposition to the disease, even when the parents are in successful recovery. Parents should not only provide healthy behaviors, they also need to know what's out there, where their kids are going and with whom. People need to talk with their kids about any sort of addiction as a disease, and why not to use or drink. In families with addiction or alcoholic histories, the susceptibility to addiction can be approached like other genetically linked chronic diseases.

Some of the school guidance or parents think that alcohol is a safer bet than drugs for the kids, but alcohol can be the deadliest drug of all. Adolescents need firm guidance and clear behavioral expectations from their schools and parents along with demonstrated warmth and emotional support. They also need to develop their own mental strength and initiative, often found in structured youth activities. It is here that addicted kids often develop diverse peer relationships. Adolescents need to get a proper social capital, or they may find it in the structure of a gang. Peer pressure, at times, for engaging in dangerous thought process and/or behavior can be found in school-sanctioned activities too.

A number of communities, as reported, have school or community based prevention programs. Raising Resilient Children is such an awareness program for parents and young children and identifies the risk factors of alcohol or drug addiction. A research-based program curriculum is the Project Northland, which is for middle-schools or schools with parental involvement, extracurricular peer leadership and community-wide efforts for young adolescents in grades 6-8.

• Felicia Byrnes
• 10/02/2009, 2:59 AM
• 0 Comments