Love and discipline key to keeping children away from drugs - Sri Madhusudan Sai

When children get enough love and attention they stay away from drugs and law enforcement agencies have to be very strict about combating drugs. There is no mercy because it is ruining the future of the country.

This has been highlighted by the Sri Madhusudan Sai, the founder of Sai Prema Foundation, the organisation behind the Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Children's Hospital in Fiji, while speaking during a Talanoa session with Sai Sanjeevani Hospital’s Director Dr Krupali Tappoo.

He says conversations about the widespread availability of drugs and building moral strength to resist such temptations because they are not good for you, has to happen more often.

He says children are naturally curious and there is peer pressure, so their imagination has to be always kept aflame.

Sri Madhusudan says children have to be given something new, exciting and challenging to do and only then will they not get distracted.

He further says children need attention, care, love and challenges to thrive.

He says in the race to get ahead of others, to amass more material pleasures, wealth, everybody goes out and does all kinds of things and they don't pay attention to the children.

Sri Madhusudan says children are on social media or their smartphones and all the parenting is outsourced to social media.

While highlighting Meta, Facebook’s parent company, being fined by a U.S. state for content deemed detrimental to children, Sri Madhusudan compared social media to a drug peddler, saying it is doing the same thing in a more sophisticated way and is draining children’s minds.

He stresses that parents and teachers have to take a greater role and responsibility.

Sri Madhusudan says they have to watch out for not just their children but the also those around them because they can influence their children tomorrow.

He also says that teachers in the schools have to become very vocal and persistent in their efforts to remind children that such things do exist.

Sri Madhusudan says good parents and teachers give birth to good societies.

He says the education system today does not cater to the moral side of things, making it even more important for children to receive personal attention and guidance both at school and at home.

INSERT: Sai Madhusudan on drugs 25 apr

During the talanoa session, Sri Madhusudan also highlighted that at the Sri Madhusudan Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research in India, they have introduced classes in robotics.

He says they are going to have a robot at Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Hospital in Fiji someday, which will be a game-changer.

He says this is why he told the Tappoo family that the recently opened cath lab at the hospital should be larger than the regular operating theatre.

Dr Tappoo confirmed they do have a much larger room built to cater for robotics.