Mr. Stanton Peele, (”a psychologist and addiction expert, and the author of “Addiction-Proof Your Child” (Three Rivers Press, 2007)“) takes issue in an article in the Wall Street Journal (Drug Use and the Candidates) with Mitt Romney’s statement that “It’s just not a good idea for people running for president of the United States, who potentially could be the role model for a lot of people, to talk about their personal failings while they were kids, because it opens the doorway to other kids thinking, ‘Well I can do that too.’”
The subject is drug use, and whether candidates should show their “human side” by admitting to things they did as a young adult that may have been somewhat ‘extra-lawful’.
It is Mr. Peele’s “educated” opinion that it’s good for kids to hear about others that may have strayed from the path, ala Barack Obama:
This is the opposite of the approach of nearly all school drug education programs. Here the logic is to troop in people who have ruined their lives by their drug use and drinking, as object lessons in the evils of sin. But there are reasons to believe that kids reject negative messages from figures like these, and that purely scare tactics don’t work. Research on effective drug resistance programs finds that the best ways to prevent substance abuse are for kids to develop skills, feel good about themselves, have positive peers, and look forward to their futures.
From this perspective, Mr. Obama’s message that he briefly stumbled but then righted himself to achieve success may be just what the doctor ordered.
I don’t know about any of you, but had the lesson taught when I was younger been “It’s OK to do some of this stuff. Don’t go overboard, but it won’t cost you later”, I’d likely have done a lot more than what I did.
Where is this guy coming from, anyway? Of course scare tactics work. They don’t work completely on everyone, to be sure, but they do work.
What is this mamby-pamby bullshit about ‘developing skills’, ‘feel good about yourself’, ‘have positive peers’, and ‘look forward to your future’ when you’re in high school? I mean, come on. My high-school years, and most of my friends’, were all about seeing what we could get away with, doing as little as possible to get by (don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a complete screwed-up stoner–I graduated highschool with a 3.6 GPA. But it wasn’t because I worked at it).
Positive peers? WHAT positive peers? I don’t remember any of us, ever, sitting around a table deciding what we were going to be when we turned 40. I did meet with my peer group, though. Our meetings consisted of sitting around on the floor, half or more naked, more than half stoned/drunk/both, playing spin-the-bottle and listening to The Dark Side of the Moon. I miss my peer meetings sometimes.
I don’t know, though. Maybe if I’d had positive peers, felt good about myself, and looked forward to my future with my developing skills I’d have refrained from doing the things I’ve been told I shouldn’t have done.
I doubt it though. What kept me from doing more than I did was the relative certainty that if I kept at it, my ass would end up in the Oregon Correctional Institution and I would be really unhappy.
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