Dear Editor,
I am writing to express my concern about the worsening problem of parents’ gambling influences on children. Nowadays, many adults bring along their school-aged children with them when they go to buy Mark Six tickets, and some even ask their children to choose numbers for them. This is a really worrying phenomenon, as it brings numerous negative effects to the young.
This trend of bringing youngsters to gamble causes many drawbacks which must not be overlooked.
First of all, kids will learn from their parents. If a child develops a mindset thinking that gambling is alright because his parent always does it, he will start seeing it as normal. The child will receive the wrong concept and start gambling as he grows up, creating teen gambling problems, including declining grades, emotional problems and broken relationships with his family.
What’s more, the kids will think that gambling is a really easy and fast way of earning money. Thus, he may stop studying hard, believing that he will be able to earn a living through betting.
Apart from the above, gambling has proved as being an addictive activity. The addiction forces the gambler to continue, irrespective of whether he loses or wins in the deal. In fact, gambling is a thoughtless splurge of money. When a kid sees his parent spending money for a lottery ticket every week, he may think that using money this way is correct, and he will not have the motivation to save or treasure money. Moreover, gambling causes a decline in one’s career. If an adult’s job is affected due to gambling, the child will surely suffer and his life be deeply affected.
Lastly, gamblers often exhibit frequent mood swings and strangely secretive behavior. When a parent fails to win money through bets, he will have a feeling of failure and anxiousness. Many children have suffered from child abuse because parents beat or verbally attack them to vent their resentment from losing money.
Parents should NOT take kids with them when they gamble as it can really affect the child’s future. Doing healthy activities such as hiking or playing tennis and sports together with children would be a much better choice. Indeed, gambling harms the whole family and mostly the kids. So the best choice would definitely be quitting gambling. This way, the problems above would greatly be reduced.
Yours faithfully,
Pat Li
Pat Li