Sesame Street Tackles the Issue of Drug Addiction
Educating children in need of support.
Sesame Street has started tackling the issue of drug addiction seen in a recent segment with Elmo and his friend Karli.
In the sequence, Karli opens up about how her mother attends support groups to talk about the “hard times” she is dealing with in order to get help “learning to take better care of herself.” The clip is one among many other segments on Sesame Street in Communities: a supplemental online platform that provides content to kids, who are often affected by parents struggling with addiction.
According to Sesame Street’s production team, the choice of words is being carefully considered due to the mature nature of the topics, honing in, for example, on the distinction between words like “addiction” and “substance abuse” as the former seems to be less confusing for younger viewers. In one clip, Karli mentions in conversation “My mom was having a hard time with addiction and I felt like my family was the only one going through it. But now I’ve met so many other kids like us. It makes me feel like we’re not alone.” Apart from addiction, the educational children’s program has also delved into topics of literacy, mental and emotional health, wellness and homelessness.
Scroll above to see a short clip from Sesame Street in Communities that talks about addiction.
Elsewhere, Will Smith will be developing a new The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air spinoff series.
