Solutions to Children Smoking in School
Solutions to Children Smoking in School
Although many things that kids do can be seen as unwise or unhealthy, there are few things worse than when a teenager smokes. However, many teens smoke regularly, despite the risks and dangers of smoking. This has been an ongoing problem for many years now, and effects many people, even kids in our own school. Many kids will go into the restroom and smoke cigarettes, then exit, leaving the nauseating stench of cigarette smoke in the air for anybody that comes into the bathroom afterwards. This activity has continued despite the installation of smoke detectors. I feel that stronger steps need to be taken to ensure that kids who smoke receive a stronger understanding of the risks involved with smoking, programs should be set up to help teenagers quit smoking, and more effort should be put into keeping the school bathrooms clean and smoke-free.
Even though many kids do smoke, few understand the real risks and dangers of their actions. Sure, we’ve all been through elementary school D.A.R.E programs and health class, but these are just facts and numbers telling you about what smoking might do to you. What is needed is a much deeper, more real experience in which the student learns about the great possibilities that they will get sick, and hear from survivors of these diseases, and hear about those who did not survive. This kind of curriculum would send a deeper message in which kids would actually feel what these people went through, and realize that they do not want the same thing to happen to them.
After the students recognize that their actions do not do them any good, they will want to quit, but will not be able to because they have become addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes. To help these teens, programs should be set up in the school in which students can anonymously get help in dropping their habits. The program should offer information with tips to help people quit smoking, and if necessary, additional aids such as nicotine gums or patches. If these programs do not work, then obviously the student has a very serious problem, and should anonymously be admitted to a doctor for further treatment. If students have the will to quit, and the school helps to provide a way,...