This morning, while we were having breakfast, Dennis spied our neighbors' son pacing our end of the cul-de-sac. He was smoking and we assumed he was out there (and not in front of his home) because his parents don't know he has picked up this terrible habit. We know this kid. He is about fifteen and we hired him to help us with our chickens last year. It saddened us to see him smoke. So young and already addicted. Does this mean the beginning of wrong choices that will lead him down the wrong path? If not the wrong path, it means at the very least an almost certain fate of lung cancer in the future. As a parent, I ached for this avoidable future pain he would have to endure.
Dennis and I think about how we would keep our children from drugs and addictive behavior like smoking and incessant computer game playing. We read that, as parents, if we can keep our children from such behavior till at least 21, they are almost guaranteed to be home free. So the question is, beyond the oft mentioned recommendation of eating dinner together, how? We hope to raise them lovingly, so that they are imbued with confidence and humility as well as love for others and for their own selves. We hope to provide a good home environment so that they would never go there. Yet, so many children fall prey and I don't believe all of them ended up doing/trying drugs because of some deficient home environment. In short, we need answers to why some kids try and do drugs. Why do they smoke when already there are so many warnings about the health effects? Why do drugs when they have been told about how ruinous it is, except perhaps it is exactly what they seek: ruin. But why?
I don't have the answer, but I will strive to keep our own children close and safe from such temptations.
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