The Missing Link: Self-Esteem

When I'm not beating the drum about drug use (which is hardly never), I do have a full-time job.  I am the owner of a performing arts academy.  

We have created the Socially Conscious Theater and are embarking on our first production entitled, "One Bad Choice". This play ties in with the issues facing our children/teens today and is an accompaniment to the documentary, Behind the Orange Curtain.

Robert Madrid, is directing and has won awards for this type of production in Albuquerque, NM. 

I invited one recovering addict in to speak to our theater group class and she brought three friends, as the students in the production will create their own characters and perform them in this play. All four students sat in front of the room and told their own individual stories to our class. You could hear a pin drop.

Each talked about coming from amazing homes, loving parents and yet they knew they were going to dabble in drugs. One young woman told the story of how she had sold her body to buy drugs, talked about their arrests, their parent's anguish, hurting their families as well as themselves. Each one told the story of how they tried to commit suicide because the addiction was so overwhelming - one couldn't finish the plan as she didn't have money for drugs that particular day. At the end of their sharing, the hands went up - asking questions like what's a benzo? Huffing? Spice? Your mother's Xanax....and more. They were writing and asking questions like crazy. The funny but sad part is I could have filled that room with a hundred kids from this area telling stories just like that. Not one of four was over 22 years old.

The common thread - going back through each of their stories was the lack of self-esteem. Even though they seem to have it all, they were missing that one important thing - self-esteem.

We as parents do everything that we can think of to nurture our children, engage them in sports, church, activities that will keep their minds and bodies busy - and yet how do we instill self-esteem and confidence.

My neighbor told hem how she enrolled her son in baseball - but since he was chubby, he spent most of the time on the bench and was ridiculed by other players - at 10 years old. She said his involvement did more harm than good. 

How do you recognize early that your child suffers from low self-esteem? 

What I did realize is that the reason for this acting school was to build my own daughters self-esteem and confidence. She was jaw dropping pretty as a little girl, but shy as could be. I tried soccer, I tried a few acting classes that were just photo mills and scams. Where she did flourish was in an acting class. No competition for a show, no lead rolls....just slate, copy, block and do you lines. Everything improved - reading, reading comprehension and her ability to stand up in front of a room and speak - make eye contact and have a sense of who she is. Somehow through all of this - my journey is making sense. 

I developed a program  - that will be for those in recovery to come and ...."act away"....class facilitated on an off evening when the school is closed. Almost every young addict that I have met is extremely talented...from singing, performing, art, musically....and I think it's never to late to explore that talent you were born with. 

I was very proud of our students in that Performance/Production Class. They were mature and inquisitive and I am very excited to see the characters they create from what they learned on this one special Saturday.