Judge M.T. Thompson, Jr and Professor Monica R. Nuckolls Presents:
Making Choices
Facing Consequences
Life is about making choices and then facing the consequences of those choices. Many of the choices you make as a young adult will affect the rest of your life. Good choices will lead to happy and successful lives. Bad choices will lead to disappointment and failure.
Everyday you are faced with hundreds of choices. You choose what to have for breakfast and what to wear to school. You choose to be a good student or you choose to just get by. You choose to join a gang, use drugs or participate in other risky behavior or you choose not to.
Many of your choices have potential life-altering consequences. Sometimes the consequences are obvious. Sometimes they are unintended and sometimes they are hidden. In either case, you must live with the consequences of your choices. To make good choices you need to stop and consider all the potential consequences before you act. Many people lose their lives, get in trouble and destroy their future, simply because they didn’t stop to consider all of the possible consequences of their actions before they took them.
The short stories presented in this book are designed to help you think about and evaluate the various choices and consequences associated with gangs, bullying and violent crimes. They are also designed to help you recognize and avoid certain risky situations and behavior that can destroy your future.
At the end of each story, you will find some questions about the good and bad choices presented, the possible consequences of those choices and how you should respond to similar situations.
Being able to think your way through these real life situations will improve your decision making skills. It will help develop a what-are-my-choices, what-are-my-consequences approach to decision making. We hope that you will apply these critical thinking skills when you confront these issues in your own life. If you do, we are confident that you will make the right choices.
Drug and alcohol abuse constitutes a major threat to the minds, strength and future of a growing number of our children. The chemical plague, which is sweeping through the country, operates like an infectious disease and crosses all class, social, cultural and racial lines. From the heart of the poorest city, to the outer limits of the richest suburbs, the testimony is the same.
We are losing more and more children to drugs. It doesn’t matter if it’s the butcher, baker or candlestick maker’s son or daughter. It doesn’t matter if it’s crack, meth, ecstasy or some other exotic designer drug. The result is the same. We are losing more and more children to drugs.
Unfortunately, there is no one-time, anti-drug vaccination we can give our children before we let them out to play. The only effective antibiotic is to teach them how to make the right choice every time they are confronted with drugs and alcohol. As demonstrated by the stories in this book, one huffing experience, one night of smoking crack or one hit of meth or ecstasy may be too much. We need an effective two-way conversation with our children. Parents, teachers and mentors must join forces and send one clear and consistent anti-drug message to our children.
Then we must constantly reinforce that message. We must do more than tell our children to simply say no. We must teach them why they must say no and the potential consequences if they don’t. We can’t afford to minimize the harsh realities of drug addiction or wait until after their first street exposure to drugs. The risks are simply too great. There is too much at stake.
This book is designed to provide accurate information about commonly used drugs. It is important for all the players, including parents, teachers and young adults to know about drugs, how they are used, the effects of each drug and the consequences of each drug’s use. It is especially important for parents and teachers to know what drugs and drug paraphernalia look like and how to recognize a child on drugs.
The stories contained in this book are designed to initiate a discussion about the choices children and young adults face everyday when it comes to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, crack cocaine, ecstasy, huffing and related drugs and practices. It also focuses on the consequences that go along with these choices. This is a discussion that every child in America needs to participate in. We hope that parents, teachers and mentors will use the stories and materials in this book to work through these issues with their children and young adults.
Drugs And Alcohol Threatens Our Children
Making Choices Facing Consequences:
Volume II - Drugs and Alcohol
Making Choices Facing Consequences:
Volume I - Gangs, Bullies & Violent Crimes
Making Choices And Facing Consequences is a crime prevention and drug education program designed specifically for distressed communities with a youth crime problem. It consists of two volumes: Making Choices And Facing Consequences: Gangs, Bullies & Violent Crimes, Volume I and Making Choices And Facing Consequences: Drugs And Alcohol, Volume II.
The Program is designed to:
(1) promote the development of personal self-management skills through decision making exercises that allow young adults
to examine real life situations and consider the choices and consequences presented by each situation;
(2) teach young adults what constitutes unlawful and risky behavior and how to avoid dangerous and unsafe situations; and
(3) promote responsible citizenship and appropriate behavior standards.
Character training is delivered through a set of real life stories about children and young adults. The characters in the stories come from the same type of neighborhoods, share similar backgrounds, and face the same type of problems, pressures and temptations as the young adults we are trying to reach. Some of the stories involve difficult children trying to cope with bad environments and some involve “good” children who made bad choices and then had to face the consequences of those choices.
The stories in Volume I revolve around gangs, bullies and violent crimes. The stories in Volume II revolve around drugs and alcohol. Each story builds to a point of importance and then presents the character(s) with one or more critical choices. Good choices have good consequences. Bad choices have bad consequences. The choices have urgency and meaning for the young adults who face many of the same choices on a daily basis. The beauty of the program is the power of the stories, the way they are told, the way they engage the young adults, and the teaching opportunities they present. Many of the stories are based on real life situations.
The stories are appropriate for a variety of groups and one-on-one teaching situations. They can be utilized at home, school, church or in community centers. The parents, teacher or mentor should decide on the most appropriate way to present each story to their particular audience.
Working through these real life situations will improve the young adult’s decision making skills. It will also help develop a what-are-my-choices, what-are-my- consequences approach to decision making. Following completion of the program, young adults will apply these critical thinking skills when they confront these same issues in their lives.
