“Smokers smell bad… They smell bad every second every minute and every hour…”

We taught children about smoking and recited this poem along with them. Thereafter, a child came up to me and told me how his father was hitting his mother. I felt extremely sad and to deviate his mind, I showed him a bird who was flying in the sky.

Although I did not immediately attend to this issue, I made sure to bring down his parents to school and speak to them privately. I had to handle this situation tactfully as the child might be potentially threatened had I directly told the father about what the child had said.

I began the conversation by asking the father about what his expectations of the child were, and the father replied saying that he wanted a good child. Then, I mentioned that the child was not engaging in activities performed in class and that he spends most of the time thinking. I also mentioned that I knew from experience how children are likely to show such behaviours when they face problems at home. I also explained how these problems can affect the child’s development and hinder the ability to get what is expected.

Thereafter, I asked the father whether he consumed alcohol, to which he did not answer. Then I reminded him about his family, about his beautiful wife and child. I explained to him how alcohol consumption makes people unattractive. I encouraged the father to be more responsible and build a positive environment for the child to grow up.

A few days later, the child’s mother came for the parent’s day. I asked her how the father was, and I was delighted to hear that he had not only stopped physically hitting the mother but also had stopped drinking alcohol.

It was through these drug prevention programmes at preschools that enabled me to contribute to this change

Geethani Perera – Pre-school Teacher