Helping Children Understand The Complications Of Drugs And Alcohol

Posted on Jul 13 2016 - 9:48am by Charlie

When you sit down to talk to your children about drugs and alcohol, no matter what age they are, you want to make sure that you are doing more than just saying, “Don’t take drugs or drink while you’re under age.” You need to explain to them what it is about these drugs that is going to harm them.

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You will want to talk to them about the different drugs, since different drugs will have different effects. They need to understand that even drugs that are legal, like alcohol and prescription drugs, are still dangerous. That taking someone else’s prescriptions, or even taking their own incorrectly, can cause issues.

Problems With Prescriptions And Other Legal Drugs

Prescription drugs maybe be approved by the FDA and prescribed by a doctor, but that doesn’t make them safe for anyone. Even the people that are prescribed the drugs need to make sure they are taking them as prescribed, and even then they can have side effects that can be mild or life threatening.

But it’s important that children understand that they should also never take anyone else’s prescription, even if that person offers it to them. Different people have different reactions to certain drugs, depending on their age and health. Just because one person’s headache medicine helps them, it could put someone else in the hospital or give them a heart attack.

Alcohol is another legal drug that children need to understand the dangers of. Things like binge drinking can kill. Drinking in general impairs your vision and your ability to react, which can cause car accidents and more.

Addiction And Loss

Your teens and younger children may hear stories from peers and other kids in school how certain drugs made them happy, or feel like they were flying, or other things appealing to children. You need them to understand that those effects are temporary, and that their are far worse ones that could easily happen to them.

Not only do drug addicts and alcoholics risk dangerous accidents, and addiction, but there are other risks that could be just as bad. Addicts find it hard to hold jobs, often, and an accident on the job could quickly lead to unemployment. Addiction can cause problems within families as well, and tear them apart.

Quick to anger addicts could easily hurt someone they care about. This could possibly cause irreversible damage to their loved one’s health such as giving them cancer or even liver disease. It might help to research and learn about the biology behind the liver such as the function of the kupffer cells and why it is so vital in the body. Then educate them on how to alcohol kills the liver and what it means for the person’s health. The same goes for drugs, understanding how something damages you is a real eye opener. Not only this but it can damage people’s lives in general. You could end up in jail, or even in prison. Is it worth it? It’s likely if you go through all of these dangers, show pictures from online, and maybe even take them in to talk to people at a rehab facility, they’ll realize it really isn’t worth it.

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