By Laura Lane
Whatever it was that broke the ice, it could not have been easy for the visitors to stand before Chatterton's fifth- and sixth-graders to bear their souls, and in doing so reveal embarrassing, ugly moments in their lives that were fraught with alcohol and drug abuse.
The youngest girl was only 14, the others not much older. And they looked typical, dressed like the kids from Merrick, using the same expressions, fond of the same television shows. The teens could even remember playing sports and laughing with their friends, but of course that was before the days of abuse, prior to a commitment to self-destruction.
Although the recent anti-drug assembly ran long, Chatterton's fifth- and sixth-graders did not fidget, did not whisper to their friends, or ask to use the restroom. They were glued to their seats, eager to hear every word the teens from Daytop Village -- a drug treatment center/school -- had to say. Although the assembly was quiet, orderly and educational, it was probably also a little scary for the Chatterton children.
"I was just like you," one 16-year-old said. "But then I tried pot in the seventh grade and started to get into fights. I started drinking in the eighth grade and by the 10th grade had a problem with pot. Then I was arrested and brought out of my school in handcuffs for breaking into an office. I'm here to prevent you guys from going through what I went through."
Daytop, the oldest and largest drug-free, self-help program in the country, was created for children between ages 12 and 21. Besides addiction issues, the teens at Daytop have much in common, one thing being that they have all lost the privilege to go to public or private school. Instead, they attend school at the center in Suffolk Country and receive therapeutic, educational and social rehabilitation. Part of the treatment program is taking part in informational seminars like the one at Chatterton.
Social workers from all of three Merrick elementary schools -- Chatterton, Birch and Levy-Lakeside -- requested and received a visit from Daytop at their schools.
"The idea was to have Daytop come for Red Ribbon Week. This is the first time Daytop came to the Merrick schools," Chatterton social worker Linda Sabo said. "This was real hands-on, concrete information for our kids to see. We usually show videos to the kids, but they liked hearing someone who had been through the experience themselves."
It was clear from the get-go that having Daytop come in was the right decision. The Chatterton kids appeared to feel something for the teens from Daytop. And Sabo said social workers from the other two Merrick schools reported similar experiences with their students. At Chatterton, the students were concerned about how the Daytop kids were being treated, if "people were nice to them at the school." Others wanted to know if the teens could go back to the athletic teams that they had once loved, which is not possible at Daytop.
As the questions continued, it appeared the children were trying their hardest to imagine what it would be like to have everything taken away -- their friends, their school and the freedom to choose what they wanted to do with their free time.
The Chatterton youngsters asked the teens repeat details about their backgrounds. The Merrick students seemed to need to assimilate the fact that their lives and those of the Daytop teens were not that different; that is, up until the Daytop teens choose to abuse alcohol and drugs.
And Sabo said what surprised children most was the fact that cigarettes are drugs and that each Daytop teen had smoked them before abusing other drugs. As the questions continued, the Chatterton students seemed driven to understand what caused the teens to hurt themselves so terribly. They seemed to want answers that maybe were not there.
"I saw the kids in the audience connect with the teens from Daytop," Sabo said. There was empathy there for them."
After the assembly, discussions continued in the classrooms. Students were asked to write letters to the Daytop teens to share their reactions and what they experienced. One sixth-grader said she was inspired to hear the Daytop teen's goals for the future. She believed the assembly would help her classmates to make the right decisions in future. Sabo thought the Daytop teens would probably enjoy reading that.
Discussions continued, and later in the week, Chatterton principal David Sills spoke to teachers regarding the students' reactions. "The teachers thought the experience was fantastic and talked about it in the classrooms throughout the next day," Sills said. "These were real people, and the kids related to them. We will definitely repeat this next year."
