Summer’s Here!
School is out and summer is here! Our children, and especially teens, often have lots of unscheduled time, which can increase opportunities to experiment with risky behaviors. Recently at a community dialogue night, Debby Haskins*, presenter and licensed alcohol and drug counselor, shared three key concepts to help parents keep children and teens safe from underage alcohol and drug use.
Develop a Network of Youth/Teen Safe Places
While this may sound like Mission Impossible or something out of the Bourne Identity, it’s really not as difficult as it sounds. Basically, talk to other parents and make an agreement that your house will be a Safe Place and find out who else is willing to make this commitment.
What is a Safe Place? A safe place is one where at least one parent or adult caregiver is present and tuned into what the children/teens are doing while there. It is a house where parents share their phone number with other parents and welcome them to call and check in. It is a house where no drugs, alcohol, or tobacco use by minors will be tolerated. It is a house where alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs will be secured and not easily accessible to children and teens. Will you make your home a Safe Place?
Check in with your children’s/teen’s friends’ parents to see if they are a safe place before making a decision to allow your son or daughter to go! Bring them there the first time they visit, introduce yourself to the parents, see the space where they will be spending time, and set a time to check in with your child and the parents.
Multi-Age Play
Fact: Youth benefit from role models besides parents.
Multi-aged play allows this to happen naturally. We do a lot of this when our children are young, but often step back once they reach elementary school. Choose something that is a good fit for your family and friends: Schedule an open gym night in the community. Set up a pickup baseball, kickball, volleyball, whiffle ball game or combination such as kick/whiffle. Host a potluck barbeque or game night. See which activities appeal to your children and let them help in the planning! Keep these events substance free and model that fun can be had without alcohol or other drugs!
Family Meals
Debby also shared that there is a tremendous value to making family meals a regular part of your week**. You can enhance this time by making the meals together. Summer is a great season to re-establish this tradition. Youth who regularly have meals with their family are:
- 13% less likely to smoke cigarettes
- 17% less likely to drink alcohol
- 19% less likely to use marijuana
- 22% less likely to fight physically
- 23% less likely to have sex
- 32% less likely to make a suicide plan
The Wrap Up
Monitor your children’s summer plans and create fun, healthy opportunities to connect with them, their friends, parents and other community members! For more tips for parents on helping reduce youth alcohol and drug use visit: parentupvt.org
*Debby Haskins is a 25 year veteran in the substance abuse field and is currently the Director of SAM-VT, http://sam-vt.org/. Debby spent many years working in Vermont schools and is also a suicide program specialist for the Center for Health and Learning (www.healthandlearning.org)
Suicide Prevention Resources:
** Meal statistics assumes students are otherwise identical with respect to mother’s education level, race/ethnicity, gender, grade in school, and presence/absence of the other seven assets.