Red Ribbon Week Recap!
Thank you to all PTO, staff, and students for another successful Red Ribbon Week at Memorial School.
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| 1st Graders on Red White and Blue Day! |
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| 5th graders on "Your future is so bright you gotta wear shades day!" (or neon)
Together with Mrs Austin, the students in grades 3-5 did a fabulous job decorating their classroom doors with creative themes. Thank you to our students in K-2 for their great job voting on their favorites. It was nice to see that every single door got its share of the votes but 3 doors stood out as our winners.
In 3rd Place was Mrs. Doucett’s “It’s Batty to Do Drugs”, 2nd place went to Mrs. DesRosiers “We Use the Force to Say No to Drugs” and our winner was Mr. LaPorte’s room’s “Drugbusters Just Say No”.
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Mr. LaPorte’s class won a pizza party with Chief Jewett!
(click here to view the rest!)
On Wednesday we held our own election as students “Elected to be DRUG FREE!”
Below are 2 links for resources with information on ways to keep your children and family safe and they promote healthy choices.
The Southern Rockingham Coalition for Healthy Youth is helping to promote, support, and sustain healthy choices for children, youth and families in our communities by actively working to reduce and prevent alcohol, marijuana, prescription and other drug misuse.
(Find the information below and more on their website)
What to Say to Your 2 to 4 Year Old
Scenario: Giving your child a daily vitamin.
What to Say: Vitamins help your body grow. You need to take them every day so that you’ll grow up big and strong like Mommy and Daddy—but you should only take what I give you. Too many vitamins can hurt you and make you sick.
Scenario: Your kids are curious about medicine bottles around the house.
What to Say: You should only take medicines that I give you. They will have your name on them and that your doctor has chosen just for you. If you take medicine that belongs to somebody else, it could be dangerous and make you sick.
Scenario: Your child sees an adult smoking and, since you’ve talked about the dangers of smoking, is confused.
What to Say: Grown ups can make their own decisions and sometimes those decisions aren’t the best for their bodies. Sometimes, when someone starts smoking, his or her body feels like it has to have cigarettes – even though it’s not healthy. And that makes it harder for him or her to stop. (Parenting expert Jen Singer says the same script applies to gradeschoolers.)
What to Say to Your 5 to 8 Year Old
Scenario: Your child tells you he was offered prescription drugs by a classmate — but said no.
What to Say: After praising your child for making a good choice and for telling you about it, let him know that in the future, he can always blame you to get out of a bad situation. Say, “If you’re ever offered drugs at school, tell that person, ‘My mother would kill me if I took that and then she wouldn’t let me play baseball.’”
Scenario: Your grade-schooler comes home reeking of cigarette smoke.
What to Say: I think you might have been exposed to cigarettes. Were there people near you smoking? I know you may be curious and want to maybe sometime try smoking, but as you can see, it’s pretty disgusting and can make you cough and gag a lot. Your clothes and your breath and your hair will all stink and it can be super tough to stop smoking once you start.
Scenario: Your child has expressed curiosity about the pills she sees you take every day — and the other bottles in the medicine cabinet.
What to Say: These are all medications for particular health issues and family members. Just because it’s in a family’s medicine cabinet doesn’t mean that it is safe for you to take. Even if your friends say it’s okay, say, “No, my parents won’t let me take something that isn’t for me or doesn’t have my name on the bottle.”
Scenario: One in seven teens in America has tried huffing — inhaling the fumes from everyday items like nail polish remover, hair spray, and cooking spray. It’s probably been a while since you’ve talked to your child about the dangers of the products under the kitchen sink — but it’s important to reiterate the warning.
What to Say: I know it’s been a while since I talked to you about the dangers of cleaning products and that they should only be used for cleaning. But I’ve heard that some kids are using them to get high. I just want to let you know that even if your friends say, “Hey, we can buy this stuff at the supermarket so it’s totally okay to sniff it,” it’s not. Inhaling fumes from cleaners or products are as dangerous as doing all the drugs we’ve talked about.
Now, let’s talk about ways you can get out of the situation if that happens. What do you think you should say? Remember, you can always blame me and say, “My mom would kill me if I tried that!”
What to Say to Your 9 to 12 Year Old
Scenario: Your child is just starting middle school and you know that eventually, he will be offered drugs and alcohol.
What to Say: There are a lot of changes ahead of you in middle school. I know we talked about drinking and drugs when you were younger, but now is when they’re probably going to be an issue. I’m guessing you’ll at least hear about kids who are experimenting, if not finding yourself some place where kids are doing stuff that is risky. I just want you to remember that I’m here for you and the best thing you can do is just talk to me about the stuff you hear or see. Don’t think there’s anything I can’t handle or that you can’t talk about with me, okay?
Scenario: You find out that kids are selling prescription drugs at your child’s school. Your child hasn’t mentioned it and you want to get the conversation about it started.
What to Say: Hey, you probably know that parents talk to each other and find things out about what’s going on at school…I heard there are kids selling pills –- prescriptions that either they are taking or someone in their family takes. Have you heard about kids doing this?
Scenario: Your child’s favorite celebrity — the one he or she really looks up to — has been named in a drug scandal.
What to Say: I think it must be really difficult to live a celebrity life and stay away from that stuff. Being in the public eye puts a ton of pressure on people, and many turn to drugs because they are confused or feel a lot of stress. But a lot of famous people manage to stay clean –- like [name others who don’t do drugs] –- and hopefully this incident is going to help [name of celebrity] straighten out his life. Of course, people make mistakes –- the real measure of a person is how accountable he is when he messes up. It will be interesting to see how he turns out, won’t it?
The thing is, when a person uses drugs and alcohol — especially a kid because he’s still growing — it changes how his brain works and makes him do really stupid things. Most people who use drugs and alcohol need a lot of help to get better. I hope [name] has a good doctor and friends and family members to help him/her.
