Time to talk about taboos
** _“So what do you want to be when you’re older?” “I dunno… Drug dealer or something”._ **
Picture the scene. It was a Monday morning and I was working in a school, helping a Year 9 class consider their possible future career paths. I was also suppressing a visible flinch at this student’s remark.
I knew they were joking – they provided me with a really encouraging and insightful answer soon after – nevertheless, it got me thinking. Why say it in the first place? Perhaps it is a simple matter of being young and just wanting to muck around in class? Maybe. Maybe not. Might it be time for our country’s schools to make a greater effort to drop the British ‘stiff-upper lip’ mentality and talk about about subjects that have long been considered taboo? Might it be time to extend the topics covered in PSHE classes and implement its importance further in the educational curriculum?
Social networking sites such as Twitter blur the boundaries between the professional and private lives of celebrities – who are supposedly many young people’s role models. The causal flippancy of some celebrities posting pictures of them rolling out of nightclubs, drinks in hand, drunkenly dancing the night away hardly espouses the veneer on a lifestyle that is to be aspired to. Children are constantly exposed to stories in the media of celebrities drug fuelled lives. Whilst it isn’t condoned, the constant attention serves to glamourise drug use.
{{ quote There is nothing more false than dancing around the issue; the kids can really see when you are }}
If we only we could better engage school kids in frank discussions about the substance use and abuse. There is nothing more false than dancing around the issue; the kids can really see when you are.
A recent study commissioned by the charity ‘Action on Addiction’ found that offering 13 and year old potential binge-drinkers therapy to treat mental health issues helped ensure that 43 percent were less likely to binge as a results after a period of 2 years; this is opposed to the schools where this therapy was not an option. This is beneficial progress if you consider that approximately six in ten people between the ages 11 and 15 claim to regularly binge drink.
Whilst no one is saying that every child is a potential binge drinker and needs help in the form of mental therapy, the education system could potentially extrapolate some of the ideas behind similar schemes. More should be invested into schools and services like ‘Talk to Frank’ so children can make informed choices about drink and drugs. At the moment, school kids have limited resources: _Waterloo Road_ doesn’t quite paint a normal picture for young adults.
The startling taboo society places on issues such as drug-taking and alcohol misuse is exactly what prevents students enquiring about such issues. I used to be very blasé towards PSHE but being in front of, rather than behind, the desk has made me realise that greater emphasis on its value is needed.
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