Andy Reid tragedy causes a mom to ponder summer surge in drug use
As Philadelphia Eagles head coach Andy Reid copes with his troubled son Garrett's death, parents redouble their vigilance. A new government study says summer time is the best time to do that as teen drug use surges then.
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On an average day in June or July , more than 5,000 youths smoked cigarettes for the first time; in other months, the daily average ranged from about 3,000 to 4,000 new users per day.
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Lisa Suhay, who has four sons at home in Norfolk, Va., is a children’s book author and founder of the Norfolk (Va.) Initiative for Chess Excellence (NICE) , a nonprofit organization serving at-risk youth via mentoring and teaching the game of chess for critical thinking and life strategies.
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On an average day in June or July, more than 4,800 youths used marijuana for the first time, whereas the daily average ranged from about 3,000 to 4,000 in other months.
That would seem to indicate that right now, as parents, we need to be trying to secure the barn door behind the horse. While it’s true that good parenting takes place year-round and should hold through temptations, it helps to know where the weak spots in the fence are located.
The report also tells us nearly 300,000 adolescents used cocaine for the first time within the past 12 months; this averages to about 800 new users per day. Also, 500,000 adolescents used hallucinogens for the first time within the past 12 months; about 1,400 new users per day. The daily average for first use of hallucinogens peaked in June and July, but has secondary peaks in October and January.
As the parent of four boys, I find those figures motivational. As someone who runs a free chess program for at-risk children in low-income neighborhoods, I have a deep and abiding contempt for drug dealers, against whom parents and I vie daily with chess and community and snacks as our weapons.
Reid’s son said in the past, according to AP reports, that he enjoyed being a drug dealer in “the hood,” which makes it hard for me to come to grips with this, but the sad fact is that drug dealers are somebody’s sons, too.
And Reid’s pain is written all over him and his team today.
We always ask, “Where were the parents?” My answer, today, seeing this tragedy, is that they were probably praying to be the best kind of parents they could be, working to provide for those children, coming home at night and asking those children, “So, what did you do today?” My guess is that the kids did not volunteer their drug use as an example of their activities.
Are there parents out there failing to ask? Yup. Are there parents not laying down rules, talking about the dangers and not doing all they can to provide guidance? I am sure there are.
However, the danger here is in assuming that because a person’s child is on drugs, selling or dying out there, that it is because that parent did not do all they could do to stop it. The path to the gateway drugs is spread before our kids right now, some may have already begun the walk. As we run after them, let’s pause to remember those who have gone down that path and lay a supporting hand on the shoulders of their parents.
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