Habit of drinking water

I migrated to the USA in December, 1994. I am originally from Bangladesh and was born at Narayangonj in 1968. There are lots of things I like and enjoy in the USA. However, one thing that has been shocking me since my arrival here is that in my observation here the people do not drink plain water frequently enough. Well, over time, even back in Bangladesh where I go back almost every year to spend my vacation time, these days many people are also getting clogged with busy schedules and I noticed that lots of people, especially who work long hours, tend to drink less water. Drinking less water is becoming a social concern around the world.
My pain started becoming worse when we had to send our son to the day care when he was about 19 months old. Since then I have been observing that it is difficult to convince teachers to promote the habit of drinking water. Most kids here in the US end up drinking juices more than drinking plain water. Most fruit juices here are made tasty by adding an amount of extra sugar. My point is that even if the juice does not have sugar, we find it more convenient to drink fruit juice rather than biting a fruit and eat it, which takes a longer time. We have started deviating from living the natural way. In the old days we used to eat the fruits using our teeth, jaws and the mouth keeping the stomach busy, etc that are needed for a human body to maintain a good healthy life in my opinion. Due to the peer pressure, it has been difficult for our children (6-year old son and almost 4-year old daughter) to drink water more frequently in places where we are not with them.
Often our children come home from schools with dry lips. Our son stays in two places without us during the weekdays - one is the school classroom and the other is the after-care programme place. I have raised this water drinking matter as a widespread social concern in our last Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO) meeting at our son's school. The PTO may be planning to do something regarding "promoting water drinking" at his school this year.
In my opinion, one of the reasons we are getting more stressed is that we are not drinking water frequently enough - it is hard to feel that we need water as most of us here in the USA stay inside the air-conditioned spaces so that our body gets dehydrated before we know it. This is what is happening to our children too when they are at school. As you can tell, our young children are going through their early childhood, they are not mature enough to overcome the peer pressure and say to themselves - "You know what - I don't care what others want to do, I need to drink water more often and get permission from my teacher to do so." This is why I requested the teachers at school to think about this matter seriously.
I believe that a dehydrated body leads to high stress - eventually who knows what stress does - maybe it even may contribute to autism and other severe disorders-- I don't have the proof but I suspect.