Did you participate in DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) when you were in school? If you went to public school, the chances are high—the DARE program is in more than 80 percent of public districts across the country, according to “NurtureShock.”
That’s a huge number—so the program must be effective at keeping kids from trying drugs and alcohol, right? Unfortunately not, research has found. Numerous studies of the program have found “no comparative reduction” in drug and substance abuse long-term.
DARE and other programs that aim to teach self-control have a tough road to success, the authors say:
…What this data indicates is that human behavior is incredibly stubborn. We’re hard to budge off our habits and proclivities…. Interventions for children are even more of a challenge—since developmentally, kids are by definition a moving target.
“NurtureShock” profiles a program for young children that does work, however. Called Tools of the Mind, the program for preschoolers and kindergarteners harnesses subtle curriculum changes to great effect. In fact, it’s so effective that the developers “keep losing their grant money—the students are so successful they’re no longer ‘at-risk enough’ to warrant further study.”
One of Tools’ cornerstones is the play plan. Children are given a play scenario (for example, “hospital”) and choose the role they want—doctor, nurse, patient, etc. They draw themselves inhabiting that role and write it, too (with a teacher’s help). And for 45 minutes or an hour, they stay in character, role playing at different stations around the classroom. Kids who stray are reminded of their play plan by their teachers, who merely facilitate whatever scenarios the children create.
It sounds simple, especially considering that young children role play most every day. But the sustained nature of the play is what sets the curriculum apart:
Young children learn abstract thinking through play, where a desk and some chairs become a fire engine. More importantly, when play has interacting components, as in Tools, the child’s brain learns how one symbol combines with multiple other symbols, akin to high-order abstract thinking. A child masters the intellectual process of holding multiple thoughts in his head and stacking them together.
In effect, Tools kids are learning executive function and cognitive control, the building blocks of self-control. The kids are constantly prompted to check how well they’re doing according to their play plan, thus developing greater self-awareness.
Self-control, the authors argue, is ultimately more important than innate intelligence (though both, naturally, is far better—for example, high IQ, high executive-function kids were 300% more likely to ace math in one Penn State study). After all, kids and adults must perform under pressure in the real world, such as on IQ tests. Those with both smarts and self-control are ahead of the game, but those who are just disciplined are still better off than those who are just smart.
Did the DARE program have any impact on you? Do you plan on teaching your kids to exercise self-control?
cantaloupe / 6730 posts
Will be interesting to see the study in 15 years to see if it worked!
nectarine / 2530 posts
IMO, students who joined DARE weren’t the type to do that anyway, and the students who were using drugs and alcohol weren’t the type to listen to those in DARE ;). I was a member of SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving) and we were the straight-laced bunch who thought it the end of the world if we got a B on our report cards. Our event of the year was the SADD lock in, where we organized a bunch of games, pizza, etc. that went on throughout the night in the gym of our school. It was tons of fun, but I doubt we got any sort of message across lol.
hostess / wonderful honeydew / 32460 posts
I dont’ remember being involved in the DARE program..
It was mostly my parents who talked to us about not drinking alcohol and not doing drugs, smoking cigarettes, etc. My parents don’t drink, and funnily enough, I’m not a fan either.
Parenting is so stressful and such a huge responsibility!
pear / 1787 posts
I don’t think DARE is pitched as promoting self-control, so I’m not sure it can be compared to Tools of the Mind. Perhaps philosophically that’s what DARE claims to do, but from what I remember, it was mostly scare tactics regarding the dangers of drugs and alcohol mixed with comeback lines to use when dealing with peer pressure. I don’t think DARE was very effective–it was mandatory for all of us in 6th grade, but the kids who were already drinking or who would in high school were going to do that regardless, and the kids who weren’t interested in partying didn’t have DARE to thank for avoiding that scene.
Tools of the Mind sounds really interesting, but I don’t see how it connects to pre-teens/teens and drugs & alcohol.
grapefruit / 4006 posts
DARE was mandatory for all kids when i was in middle school…maybe 4-6th grade. i agree with @DigAPony: that DARE didn’t teach self-control, but it was more a method of something akin to brainwashing. So I think it works up to a certain extent, and up to a certain age. drugs are bad, and they hammer that into you when you are young enough to just believe it as fact and not question it. so i do think it is effective, but once kids start to develop into young adults and want to experiment, well then that “brainwashing” isn’t effective anymore.
i will say that the anti-drunk driving stuff really was hammered into me from a young age, and when i was in my mid-20’s, i was horrified to learn that people i knew and respected actually drunk drove. i’ve never done it, and i am still horrified by it – but i really didn’t realize how common it was until i was much older….so in my case, that campaign actually did work.