How do you explain an athlete's taking drugs to your kids?

Athletes are often seen as those individuals in the world who rise above the tide and come out on top. They were not only lucky, but also worked hard to achieve their placement in society as well as were considered to be born with especially grand skills to bring them to the forefront of the media and sports world.

Their lives are under a great deal of scrutiny because of their public role in society and because they are some of them heroes to young children who are often taught that if they work really hard, they can too achieve such a celebration of the skills they develop over time as well.

Celebrity status can be an odd thing and when children idolize these individuals in these public roles, it may be a set-up for a lot of disappointment for these children. It is therefore a more homeopathic approach to begin describing to children the fact that these individuals who have risen to the top of their profession, are regular people in many ways, just like you and me. Make certain that they understand that these celebrities put their pants on one leg at a time every day when they get up in the morning.

Explain to your children that although they have a particular skill that is especially celebrated in the public eye, that there are many different sorts of lifestyles that these choose to live behind the scenes. Children should understand that this world is full of people choosing many different ways of living and that some of these ways of living may be destructive.

The professional athlete may feel a great deal of pressure. He may not have a very close connection to his family or his God. He may be good at sports, but not good at dealing with life. There are so many reasons that athletes, as well as other people in the world choose to use drugs. Some are ignorant of the negative affects on their life, while others are just too self-absorbed to care about the affect that their use of drugs may have on the lives of others. This may be especially true in the case of the athlete, but there are many variances to consider.

Let the child know that if this particular drug was a performance enhancer, that many other athletes have succeeded without the use of these drugs and that the athlete who chose this way has harmed his reputation and perhaps put his entire career in jeopardy over an unfortunate inability to live life sober.

It is a good lesson for children to learn the whys of having a balanced lifestyle in order to not fall into the pressure trap that one who focuses on nothing else might fall into and thereafter lose everything they have worked so hard to accomplish.