ACADEMICS, NOT DARE

Editor: I have an issue with our schools and the Davidson County Sheriff's
Department. I am just curious as to how many other parents would agree with
me (and my husband). This issue is concerning the well-known DARE program
being brought to our children.

I am all for drug awareness; however, when I was the age that my children
are now, we didn't have any such DARE program in our schools. It was the
responsibility of our parents to educate us on drugs (and even on sex) at
the age they saw appropriate. Not all children are on the same "mental
page" and mature enough to handle such subjects at one designated age.

In my opinion, this program is taking away from the academic time our
children should be getting to teach them things that we, as parents, should
be teaching them. My oldest son comes home all "gung-ho" on DARE, and he
would rather do his DARE homework than to do his reading or math homework.
To me, that's backward! You have to know how to read, write and add to be
functional in society. You don't have to know what DARE stands for or what
Mr. Hege thinks about drugs.

Call it naive, or call it being sheltered as a child, but because of the
wonderful job my mother did in raising me, I have never had any dealings
with drugs, never had the peer pressure to experiment with drugs, and to
this very day, I could not tell you what most drugs even look like.

But, my point is, the DARE program is not what kept me away from drugs. So,
if we as parents guide our children down the right path and educate them to
the best of our ability, there would be no need for such a program to teach
our children things we don't want them to know about yet. By exposing drugs
and drug information to our kids so early, DARE is giving them something to
be curious about. Naturally, if they become curious about something, they
will be more apt to explore that curiosity. I know when I was 10 or 12,
drugs never entered my mind. However, if I'd had drug information being
shoved down my throat at school, it may have made me curious to find out
what all the big fuss was over.

Therefore, it's my opinion, and everybody has one, that this DARE program
is doing more harm than good. And the way I see things, DARE and the
sheriff's department is taking away the responsibility of us parents to
teach them (our children) what we want them to know at such an early age.

I will be interested in seeing how many other parents agree or disagree
with me.

Annette Varner, Lexington