A Very Bad Choice
I talked to my daughter about drugs, alcohol, and tobacco when she was around five years old. Some have called me a brute for doing it so early. But I used language she understood and she took the lesson very seriously. In effect, I brainwashed her, because what we are taught at that age we remember for life as fact. Many parents prefer to wait until the kid goes to high school at twelve, or even prefer to leave it to the school. I suppose each parent knows his child best, but, in my opinion, if the subject is brought up, it should be broached and not stuffed away in a closet to wait "until they understand." Hopefully, there should be a lot of talking going on in a lot of households these days. Unfortunately, at the expense of a young girl's life. A young girl whose parents probably thought it was too early to talk about these things.
In San Martín de la Vega, just outside Madrid, young kids got together last Friday to celebrate Halloween with their own kind of party. After finding an adult to buy them some alcohol, a group of young kids (the oldest was fifteen) went to an open area just outside town where the police never patrolled, and started drinking. Just like so many other groups of teenagers, who get together for the botellón, literally translatable as "big bottle" because the amount of alcohol consumed is impressive. That day in that place, the stars were vodka and rum. And one of the twelve-year-old girls was drinking both of them like water. Until she collapsed. Some of her companions slightly sobered up at that point. But, realizing that calling an ambulance would also bring the police and difficult questions with even more difficult answers, they stuffed their friend in the shopping cart they had used to bring out the bags of bottles, and pushed her to the clinic in town.
It took a while for them to get there, and by that time she wasn't breathing. She was resuscitated by the doctors, and sent to a hospital in Madrid by ambulance. She was in coma until Tuesday, when her developing body couldn't cope anymore with the poison she had put in it, and she died. Now, police are searching for the person who bought the children the alcohol, and the supermarket where he bought it. And when they go through surveillance footage, they will probably see many different people buying large quantities of alcohol. All to go to the botellón. Because, despite laws prohibiting the consumption of alcoholic beverages by minors, the age at which kids start drinking keeps going down. In general, children begin drinking at 13.8 years. That means there are children still in primary school who are starting to drink, for the median age to be so low.
Officials now are wringing their hands, as they always do after a tragedy like this. Everyone knows what is happening in the open areas, the parks, the beaches, the out-of-the-way areas on weekend nights. Everyone who goes shopping on Saturday afternoons knows that the teenagers in line with the shopping cart full of Bacardi and Ballantine's and Smirnoff, are not shopping for their mums and dads. All the police who patrol the streets where the popular watering holes are, know that all of those walking joyfully, or sitting and holding their heads in their hands, are not always old enough to drink.
Everyone who has had a child in high school knows about how they teach kids to say no to drugs or alcohol. There is a government-led Plan Nacional sobre Drogas (National Plan on Drugs), which sponsors activities for twelve- and thirteen-year-olds who are starting out in high school. Every kid I know, my daughter included, who has had to attend them, call them chorradas, or stupidities. They don't work. Whoever designs them must think teenagers think alliteratively, because the activities never confront the problem directly, just use stories about good choices and bad choices. Too many parents don't talk about these things at home, instead they leave these topics to be discussed in school. But, if in school they are not discussed fully, and kids are simply participating in activities that they don't see as having anything to do with drinking, they're not being taught about the reality of alcohol-induced comas or how their bodies simply can't deal with a regular intake of alcohol.
Of course, real solutions would take money, as they always do. And cities and towns are not ready to spend money. They never are. Perhaps, instead of selling alcohol in supermarkets where everyone can enter, special liquor stores should be set up, where buyers would have to have their identity card read to check their age. Perhaps, the different police forces should get together to patrol and flush out every botellón to check ages. Perhaps every establishment caught selling alcohol to minors should be permanently closed and heavily fined. Perhaps parents whose children are caught drinking, should pay good fines, and their children do public service helping those whose problems are a result of drinking and drugs. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Some of these suggestions would be called unconstitutional. Others, too expensive or untenable.
But, instead of dancing on tip-toe around an ugly reality, the school-based activities should show where under-age drinking and drug use can lead kids. In our school in Boston, those who went to the prom were shown a graphic film about drinking and driving. When you see the horrific results of a bad choice, you tend to think twice.
In San Martín de la Vega, just outside Madrid, young kids got together last Friday to celebrate Halloween with their own kind of party. After finding an adult to buy them some alcohol, a group of young kids (the oldest was fifteen) went to an open area just outside town where the police never patrolled, and started drinking. Just like so many other groups of teenagers, who get together for the botellón, literally translatable as "big bottle" because the amount of alcohol consumed is impressive. That day in that place, the stars were vodka and rum. And one of the twelve-year-old girls was drinking both of them like water. Until she collapsed. Some of her companions slightly sobered up at that point. But, realizing that calling an ambulance would also bring the police and difficult questions with even more difficult answers, they stuffed their friend in the shopping cart they had used to bring out the bags of bottles, and pushed her to the clinic in town.
It took a while for them to get there, and by that time she wasn't breathing. She was resuscitated by the doctors, and sent to a hospital in Madrid by ambulance. She was in coma until Tuesday, when her developing body couldn't cope anymore with the poison she had put in it, and she died. Now, police are searching for the person who bought the children the alcohol, and the supermarket where he bought it. And when they go through surveillance footage, they will probably see many different people buying large quantities of alcohol. All to go to the botellón. Because, despite laws prohibiting the consumption of alcoholic beverages by minors, the age at which kids start drinking keeps going down. In general, children begin drinking at 13.8 years. That means there are children still in primary school who are starting to drink, for the median age to be so low.
Officials now are wringing their hands, as they always do after a tragedy like this. Everyone knows what is happening in the open areas, the parks, the beaches, the out-of-the-way areas on weekend nights. Everyone who goes shopping on Saturday afternoons knows that the teenagers in line with the shopping cart full of Bacardi and Ballantine's and Smirnoff, are not shopping for their mums and dads. All the police who patrol the streets where the popular watering holes are, know that all of those walking joyfully, or sitting and holding their heads in their hands, are not always old enough to drink.
Everyone who has had a child in high school knows about how they teach kids to say no to drugs or alcohol. There is a government-led Plan Nacional sobre Drogas (National Plan on Drugs), which sponsors activities for twelve- and thirteen-year-olds who are starting out in high school. Every kid I know, my daughter included, who has had to attend them, call them chorradas, or stupidities. They don't work. Whoever designs them must think teenagers think alliteratively, because the activities never confront the problem directly, just use stories about good choices and bad choices. Too many parents don't talk about these things at home, instead they leave these topics to be discussed in school. But, if in school they are not discussed fully, and kids are simply participating in activities that they don't see as having anything to do with drinking, they're not being taught about the reality of alcohol-induced comas or how their bodies simply can't deal with a regular intake of alcohol.
Of course, real solutions would take money, as they always do. And cities and towns are not ready to spend money. They never are. Perhaps, instead of selling alcohol in supermarkets where everyone can enter, special liquor stores should be set up, where buyers would have to have their identity card read to check their age. Perhaps, the different police forces should get together to patrol and flush out every botellón to check ages. Perhaps every establishment caught selling alcohol to minors should be permanently closed and heavily fined. Perhaps parents whose children are caught drinking, should pay good fines, and their children do public service helping those whose problems are a result of drinking and drugs. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Some of these suggestions would be called unconstitutional. Others, too expensive or untenable.
But, instead of dancing on tip-toe around an ugly reality, the school-based activities should show where under-age drinking and drug use can lead kids. In our school in Boston, those who went to the prom were shown a graphic film about drinking and driving. When you see the horrific results of a bad choice, you tend to think twice.
A tragedy. You're right to start from an early age. Raising kids is so hard.
ReplyDelete