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Showing posts from May, 2013

Underage Drinking: Handle Tough Questions

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Parenting a teen can be challenging! But hang in there—talking with your teen is an important part of helping keep your family safe. Fortunately, you can improve parent-teen communication simply by learning how teens reason and make choices. (Hint: It’s different from adults!) You can also learn communication strategies that encourage teens to come out of their shells. Find these insights, tips, and techniques in MADD program brochure . Isn’t it better for parents to give teens alcohol under supervision? Won’t we help them learn to drink responsibly that way?  Parents, of course, have the choice of how to raise their own children. But you might want to consider lessons from science before handing your son or daughter a drink. Research shows that when parents give alcohol to kids, those children are more likely to get into alcohol-related trouble and they’re more likely to drink to get drunk than other young people. Giving kids a drink—even with the best of edu...

Medicine Abuse and Your Teenager

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Summer is coming and teens will have more free time on their hands.  Parents need to learn as much as they can about over the counter (OTC) medicine abuse, it is just as risky and dangerous as street drugs. What can you do? We can all play a role in ending medicine abuse.  By working together, parents and grandparents, health care providers,  community leaders and educators can truly make a difference. Here are 7 things you can do to help: 1. Take The Pledge. Visit http://www.medicineabuseproject.org 2. Safeguard Your Medicine. Keep prescription medicine in a secure place , count and monitor the number of pills you have and lock up your medicine. 3. Dispose Properly of Your Unused Medicine.   Learn how to safely dispose of medicine at home — and find a medicine take-back site near you. 4. Educate Yourself. Find helpful resources for Parents & Grandparents , Health Care Providers , Communities & Law Enforcement ...

Teen Sadness: Depression in Your Teenager, Knowing the Common Factors

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Being a teen is not easy, parenting a teenager is more of a challenge.  With school ending shortly their routine of seeing their friends and classes as well as activities can sometimes leave your child with a sense of loneliness.  Adolescence can be a very turbulent and difficult time, even for the most well-adjusted child. Depression strikes teenagers and adults alike, and can have far-reaching implications when kids suffer from emotional difficulties that they aren’t sure how to manage. After noticing the signs of depression in your teen and helping him to get the treatment he needs, understanding the root of his depression can help to make the situation more manageable for everyone involved. While this is by no means a comprehensive list of all causes of teen depression, these ten situations can be very common contributing factors to depression. Academic Stress – Kids are under an enormous amount of pressure to succeed academically, especially as the co...