Parents, step up!

If it is to be successful, the fight against drugs must be a holistic one, involving all persons, especially parents.

 

Insisting on this, Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) Superintendent Leon Blades pointed out that parents first must play a guiding role in steering children away from engaging in this practice, with teachers and police following.

 

“Parents don’t send them to church, but take them. Don’t use abusive [language] around them, but help them to express themselves without resorting to the use of expletives. Don’t quarrel with your neighbors and expect young, impressionable minds not to develop the tendency. Don’t use drugs in their presence and believe that they would not do it. If you beat his or her mother/father regular, they will grow up and beat their partners because that is what they saw you doing,” he noted .

 

As the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program hosted a graduation ceremony for students of the Lawrence T. Gay and Hindsbury Primary Schools on Friday at the Prince Cave Hall of the RBPF, Blades, in his feature address, advised the large group that each individual was responsible for their own choices and reminded of the need to stay strong in the face of negative peer pressure. 

 

Facilitator of the ten-week program within the schools, Acting Station Sergeant Roland Cobbler insisted that students must be protected against the dangers of drug use and urged parents to understand their role in preventing children from heading into such behaviors. 

 

“Know their friends, know where they go, speak with their teachers  and know what is going on in your child’s life,” he stressed. (JMB)