{"id":31,"date":"2017-09-07T23:40:54","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T03:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/?p=31"},"modified":"2017-09-11T23:35:56","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T03:35:56","slug":"parents-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/?p=31","title":{"rendered":"Parent’s Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally written February 16, <\/em>2006\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Newspapers leave little room for the whole story. \u00a0After all, news is \u201cinformation about hitherto unknown events and happenings\u201d.\u00a0 Opinions, thoughts, reflections and the like have no room in \u201cnews stories.\u201d It\u2019s neither what you\u2019re after, nor is it what journalists are trained to deliver. We go out, gather the facts, hopefully, the new ones, present them as fairly as we can, and in as interesting a manner as we can.\u00a0 Later on, though, there\u2019s always spare change left over — the kind that you dump onto the dresser or dig out of the washing machine.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a bit from this week\u2019s \u201cnews\u201d stories.\u00a0 Friday, we reported that parents are being enlisted in the war on teen drug use.\u00a0 That report came from a meeting of parents and professionals, the first of a series of monthly meetings at local schools.<\/p>\n

Some of the facts:\u00a0 one dad admitted he\u2019s scared.\u00a0 His child is about to enter high school, and he fought back emotion as he said he\u2019s afraid the drug culture may swallow his baby. A principal said his school has zero tolerance for dealers in the school, but that it cannot alone wage the war on drugs. Counsellors delivered statistics and told stories.\u00a0 One involved an A+ who became a prostitute for drugs. I listened as an RCMP officer said that nowadays kids hand over marijuana to cops like it\u2019s candy.<\/p>\n

Fact: the culture of drugs has replaced the culture of cigarettes. Of 721 students at Kal High, only 14 are hard-core smokers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 More do drugs.\u00a0 Fact: drugs are easy to use.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll be surprised what your kid can do with a ballpoint pen,\u201d said one drug squad officer. Fact: drugs are easy to get, in fact, often parents are supplying their own children, and when this isn\u2019t the case, it\u2019s far easier to buy marijuana than it is to buy cigarettes if you\u2019re a teenager.<\/p>\n

Fact: None of us wants our kids swallowed by the drug world, yet, sadly, we often enable it. We leave our kids after school, the top risk time for teen drug users.\u00a0 Remember latch-key programs?\u00a0 They evolved for a reason.<\/p>\n

The facts are clear and they are horrifying, sometimes even paralyzing. Parents wonder what they can do, and they\u2019re told to educate themselves and their kids, to keep lines of communication open, to watch for signs and symptoms, to get professional help.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, though, there\u2019s other information, facts that don\u2019t seem related to the story at first but that eventually help it to make sense.\u00a0 Here\u2019s one:\u00a0 kids are more stressed nowadays than ever before. According to a counselor at Kal, some students carry far bigger course loads than they need. Parents push the idea of scholarships and university education. The grades needed now to get into university are unattainable for many students. Some rest as high as 89 per cent. In the 1970s, the same entrance qualification was 70 per cent.\u00a0 Even kids whose parents don\u2019t push have a greater force at their tails: society. The pressure to succeed and to push our limits is sometimes too much to bear.<\/p>\n

Some of us, as parents, pack a knapsack full of goals, hopes, dreams, and expectations for our kids every day. We pack it in the way we say things: just do your best, we say, but what we really mean (and kids know it) is: do well. Do really<\/em> well. We\u2019ll celebrate your success, celebrate your entrance to university, your college diploma. We\u2019ll even take out an ad in the paper, tell our friends. We\u2019ll be so proud.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t someone say once that pride was a deadly sin?<\/p>\n

I have five children. I need to teach them to believe in themselves by showing them how to make independent choices, by setting examples of fine behaviour. By quitting smoking not because they tell me to, but because I value myself. I need to stop comparing them to me and to each other. And I need to know that I do that all the time, even though I don\u2019t think I am. When I holler \u201charder\u201d at a hockey game when I enter them in music festivals and then ride them to practise, when I sign them up for 41 different activities. I tell myself I\u2019m not one of those parents, but I am.<\/p>\n

My children are stressed; most kids are. The experts tell us so, even here in Vernon. One day they may find it hard to cope. They may need a way out of the race I\u2019ve entered them in. Perhaps they\u2019ll feel tired, need a glass of water, a toke, a fix. I have to admit I may be leaving out a crucial part of their education.\u00a0 What I didn\u2019t teach them was how to download. For every activity, I should have taught them an equal download — a way to relax, to stop, to still the mind.<\/p>\n

Some of you may be saying, my kids won\u2019t do drugs. And you may be right. Your kids might survive the perilous teens and enter adulthood with a tonnage of stress that no drug, legal or illegal, could possibly relieve. They may go on to university, and a career, with this extra weight, this personality deficit that may not kill them then but will certainly destroy their relationships, hamper their personal development, and possibly lead to heart disease.<\/p>\n

Drugs today are more dangerous than ever and more available than ever; those are the facts. Yet it\u2019s the stress that\u2019s killing our kids. As I sat and listened, I began to pray: Please let me not have done too much damage; and please, help each of my children \u2013 and yours too — find a peaceful, happy place, where they feel passionate about their lives, and their people, where they can pause to reflect.<\/p>\n

From that place, our children, steeped in self-confidence and peace, will make positive healthy choices. There\u2019s nothing more a parent could possibly wish for a child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally written February 16, 2006\u00a0 Newspapers leave little room for the whole story. \u00a0After all, news is \u201cinformation about hitherto unknown events and happenings\u201d.\u00a0 Opinions, thoughts, reflections and the like have no room in \u201cnews stories.\u201d It\u2019s neither what you\u2019re after, nor is it what journalists are trained to deliver. We go out, gather the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[31,25,30,35,33,37,29,34,36,32],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-31","tag-drug-crisis","tag-drugs","tag-healthy-choices","tag-kal-high-school","tag-life-choices","tag-parenting","tag-self-confidence","tag-stress","tag-vernon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}