Drug addiction? Homeschooling can help! A Guest Post by Jennifer Hardy
The good news is that if you are recovering from drug addiction and are reading this, then you have the will to get yourself back on track and get your life back. Your life was spiraling out of control, but now you are back in the driver’s seat. Resuming your education is a big part of that, and with a good structured education, you will find the rest of your life soon follows. This is the beginning of a new and more positive life.
A negative trend
Drug addiction in teens is a growing phenomenon. You are not on your own! More and more teens are experimenting with drugs during high school years, and that can quickly turn into an addiction. Most people just intend to try it once, just to prove they can, but even with good intentions it can turn into an addiction. This can be made so much worse by the stress of social and peer pressure. Just wanting to be part of the crowd is one of the main causes of drug abuse. Putting the drug addiction behind you can be really tough, but homeschooling can help you get through it. Getting over drug addiction is incredibly hard at any time in life, but it can be especially difficult at school.
Helping you focus
While recovering, most people report that they find it difficult to concentrate and to take in new information. This is obviously a problem when it comes to attending school. There are so many distractions in the classroom, whether it be a disruptive classmate, someone you have a crush on, noises from other classrooms, or teachers you don’t get on with. Learning at home will help you concentrate as there are far fewer distractions. It also takes less time to learn when homeschooled as there is less wasted time. In schools so much time is wasted on tasks such as taking attendance, collecting homework, passing out supplies, cleaning up and discipline. At home you get to skip all that. It is estimated that 1.5 – 5 hours of good homeschooling can be the equivalent of a whole week of classroom learning. This is great news if you are having trouble concentrating, as it means you only need to concentrate for 5 hours in a week as opposed to a full week worth of learning hours — a much less daunting prospect.
Supportive group
When recovering from drug addiction people often find their emotions are unpredictable. This can be so frustrating as you may have no control over your emotions and find that you are nasty to the people around you without really meaning to be. Again, this can cause problems at school as classmates won’t understand that you don’t mean it, and teachers never take kindly to being shouted at! When you are being homeschooled the close knit group of people around you will know what you are going through and will understand the reasons behind your sometimes unpredictable behavior. They know you are going through a really tough time and will forgive you.
Cutting out temptation
If you are trying to get over drug addiction, there are probably certain people you would rather not see as you know they won’t support you. As a teen there is a good chance these people will be at school, so making the move to learn at home will give you more control over who you do see, and allows you valuable time to socialize with the people you want in your life. Keeping away from the temptation of drugs is made even harder by some states legalizing marijuana. For example, avoiding drugs in Washington State is going to be that much harder since it was legalized for adults over 21 in November last year. And marijuana can be the start of a slippery slope to harder drug use. By carefully selecting which people you allow in your life you can keep a tighter control over the negative temptations that may be placed in your path.
Homeschooling gives you a great chance to get your life heading in the right direction again, while surrounding yourself with positive influences and keeping the negative temptations far away. The Homeschooling Teen website and magazine are here to keep you in touch with others who may be going through the same experiences as you.