Informed Families/Florida Family Partnership is teaming up with Family Table Time to help families bond, communicate better and deal with difficult scenarios.

Back to school time is a stressful time for many families. With schools reopening for the first time since March or continuing remote learning, many families are more anxious than usual. Family Table Time’s unique, dinner table conversation starter toolkit can help families better navigate this stressful time together. Conversation starters for the month of August include Back to School and Fears & Anxiety.

Topics: positive parenting, communication, family bonding, Covid-19, Family Table Time

Americans continue to celebrate essential workers keeping the country going during the coronavirus pandemic. McDonald's provided essential workers with free 'Thank You Meals'. Starbucks offered all front-line responders a free tall brewed coffee.Give Essential, a new nonprofit that boxes up people's extra household items to donate to those on the front line, was recently profiled on ABC News (see the coverage here). We are continuing to demonstrate our capacity to come together and support others during these unprecedented times.

Informed Families, the National Family Partnership and Family Table Time are also saying thanks and giving it up for front-line workers. While families are away from the office and school, these heroes put their health on the line to keep us safe, happy and healthy.  When you buy a six-month subscription to Family Table Time, the family of an Essential Worker will receive a six-month subscription for free. You can designate the family to receive this gift or select an option to send  it to an essential worker who needs it.

Topics: positive parenting, communication, family bonding, Covid-19, Family Table Time

Orginally published in Miami Kids magazine. 

Summer is finally here! We are all ready for a much needed break from homeschooling, and looking forward to some fun. However a less structured day, and minimal supervision can spell trouble for some kids and teens.

“It’s hard to keep tabs on your kids in the summer. Having family rules are essential all year, but perhaps even more so during the summer. They help keep kids, especially teens, out of trouble and give parents a little bit of peace of mind that their kids know guidelines exist and hopefully will be followed,” said Peggy Sapp, Informed Families President and CEO.

Establishing family rules are important. What are your rules? If you want to learn how to set and establish rules, contact Mery Dominguez at mdominguez@informedfamilies.org or 305-856-4886 about joining an Informed Families’ Parent Peer Group.

Spending time together as a family is great too. If you are looking for some ideas, don’t worry we have got you covered. Check out the list of activities of family-friendly summer activities below.

Topics: tips, parent involvement, positive parenting, communication, family bonding, children, Informed Families, family rules, drug prevention, summer, healthy kids

Some well-intentioned parents may think that allowing their teens and their teens’ friends to drink at home under adult supervision will keep their kids safe, and lead to healthier attitudes about drinking. The truth is that underage drinking can lead to serious negative consequences for both parents and teens:

1. Supplying alcohol to underage youth actually increases (rather than decreases) the risk for continued drinking in their teenage years, and can lead to problem drinking later in life.
   
   
2. Research shows that teens who perceive their parents to be more permissive about alcohol use are MORE likely to abuse alcohol and to use other drugs.
   
   
3. A majority of states have civil and or criminal penalties for adults who serve alcohol to minor at home. Under “social host laws”, party hosts are held responsible for car accidents and other disasters resulting from alcohol use at their home.

Topics: parenting, tips, positive parenting, advice, teens, parents, alcohol use

With parents working remotely, kids learning virtually and extracurricular activities outside the home postponed, Family Day is every day during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most families have not had this much time together uninterrupted in some time. 

Some families are using this time to reconnect. We love to see the cool things you have been doing - picnics in the backyard, themed dinners, bake-a-thons, game night, movie night and more. Use the #FLFamilyDays hashtag in your social media posts so we can continue to promote strengthening family relationships.

Topics: parenting, tips, positive parenting, advice, children, teens, drug use, parents, alcohol use, healthy kids, Covid-19

It’s National Drug & Alcohol Facts Week, a week focused on connecting teens with science-based facts about drugs and alcohol.

Here are some more fun ways your family can participate in National Drug & Alcohol Facts Week:

• Play Kahoot! E-cigs, Vapes and Mods: What Do You Know About Vaping?
• Take the National Drug & Alcohol IQ Challenge Quiz 
• Play the Jeopardy-style interactive game: Drug Facts Challenge
• Print a "Not everyone's doing it" placard or pledge card and tweet, snap or post a photo on social media! Make sure to include #NDAFW in your posts.
• Join a Twitter Trivia Challenge hosted by NIDA and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) on Friday, April 3, at 3 p.m. EDT.  Follow the hashtag #NDAFW and answer multiple-choice questions about drugs and alcohol.
  

Topics: parenting, education, positive parenting, teenagers, family bonding, teens, nida, drug use, parents, alcohol use, juul, vaping

How Are Your Kids Handling the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Fear and anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in both adults and children. We are all trying to adjust to our new normal as things continue to rapidly change.

While you are struggling with health concerns, school closures, having to work remotely and financial uncertainty, your kids have suddenly been cut off from school, friends, extracurricular activities and more. How are your kids coping?

According to the CDC, children and teens are among the groups of people who may respond more strongly to the stress of a crisis.

Ways to help kids manage stress and anxiety

So what parenting advice is there to help kids manage their stress and anxiety during the coronavirus outbreak?

 It is important to keep in mind that children and teens react, in part, on what they see from the adults around them. Positive parenting is key right now.

Topics: parenting, tips, positive parenting, advice, children, teens, parents, healthy kids

We’ve all seen the headlines:

“Underage drinking, drugs leads to nearly 1,000 arrests on Gulf Coast beaches”

“Sheriff's Office cracks down on underage drinking in Destin”

“Police being extra vigilant on drunk driving during spring break

"Spring Break 2019 sees drunk students descend on beach to guzzle booze, twerk and pass out in outrageous parties”

If you are the parent of a college-age student preparing to head off to a spring break destination soon, you are likely concerned about whether or not they will engage in underage or binge-drinking and wind up in lots of trouble.

Topics: positive parenting, college students, underage drinking, alcohol, teens, binge drinking, samhsa, alcohol use, alcohol abuse

 

"Adolescence is a crucial period both of susceptibility to the rewards of drugs and of vulnerability to the long-term effects of drug exposure...Adolescents are prone to risky behaviors and impulsive actions that provide instant gratification instead of eventual rewards." - Dr. Nora Volkow

Topics: addiction, drug trends, parent involvement, positive parenting, prescription drug abuse, synthetic drugs, flakka

“Rules are made to be broken,” the old anti-establishment slogan says. Yet as adults, we know that the modern orderly world in which we live functions because the vast majority of us follow basic social rules and conventions. The freedom to question the appropriateness of such rules and to object to injustice is also fundamental to a democratic society.

It is not surprising then that many parents have mixed feelings about imposing rules. On the one hand they want their children to learn what is expected of them so they can get on with others. At the same time they do not want their children to be blindly obedient to adult authority.

For children to become socially responsible they must learn that reasonable rules and limits are there for their safety and well-being, not because it’s convenient for parents. Rules help children learn exactly what sorts of behaviors are considered appropriate by their parents and what is not acceptable. They also help children learn an understanding of how fair rules are developed.

Topics: parenting, parent involvement, positive parenting, communication, rules, family rules