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Study Finds Teens Missing the Message on Vaping, Tobacco

Posted by Informed Families on December 29, 2022 at 8:49 PM

In a sign that young people are not heeding the warnings about the dangers of smoking and vaping, a new study commissioned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than three million U.S. middle and high school students used some form of tobacco product within the previous 30 days in 2022.

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Topics: parenting, teenagers, study, teens, tobacco, vaping

The Right Way To Involve Your Child in Sports

Posted by Informed Families on December 22, 2022 at 5:32 PM

When famed soccer reporter Grant Wahl died suddenly during the World Cup earlier this month, his wife, physician Céline Gounder, told CBS News, “I want people to remember him as this kind, generous person.”

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Topics: parenting, teenagers, sports, teens, social media, Family Table Time

One Child’s Fentanyl Death

Posted by Informed Families on December 19, 2022 at 2:16 PM

“When you approach a dead body, there is a void there, and I’d never sensed that before, and that’s when my world was destroyed,” Air Force veteran and airline pilot Chris Didier told The Washington Post. His son seemed asleep at his desk.

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Topics: parenting, teenagers, teens, social media, fentanyl

Keep Your Kids From Taking Catfishers’ Bait

Posted by Informed Families on December 11, 2022 at 6:58 PM

The story was tragic. A former Virginia police officer drove nearly 3,000 miles to Riverside, California, to kidnap a teenage girl he had met online through “catfishing,” a type of online deception in which someone pretends to be someone else, especially to pursue fraudulent online romances.

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Topics: parenting, teenagers, teens, social media, valor

Teaching Kids the Meaning of Valor

Posted by Informed Families on November 27, 2022 at 5:15 PM

One of the topics in this month’s Family Table Time kit is valor. But if you try to tell your child what it means to have valor, they may wonder why you’re bothering, them since they’re not serving in the military.

Why would a kid need to worry about courage or bravery, as the dictionary defines the word, in their everyday lives?

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Topics: parenting, teenagers, teens, valor

When Should You Give Your Child a Smartphone?

Posted by Informed Families on November 20, 2022 at 9:45 PM

“But Mom, everybody else has one!”

And of course, the classic parental response to this is, “If everyone else was jumping off the Empire State Building, does that mean you have to?”

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Topics: parenting, teenagers, teens, social media, smartphone

Snapchat’s Small Step Toward Helping Parents Monitor Teens Activity

Posted by Informed Families on November 13, 2022 at 4:47 PM

For years, parents have campaigned to get social media sites to help them keep their kids safe online. In order to stave off government action, some of these platforms have moved to offer safety features they say will help protect kids.

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Topics: parenting, teenagers, teens, social media

DEA Issues Warning on ‘Rainbow’ Fentanyl

Posted by Informed Families on October 29, 2022 at 2:52 PM

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), during the 12-month period ending in April 2021 more than 100,000 Americans died from synthetic opioids. Between May and September of this year, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents around the country seized more than 10 million fentanyl pills and hundreds of pounds of powder, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced in September.

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Topics: parenting, teenagers, teens, drugs, fentanyl

Safety and Behavior for Teens

Posted by Informed Families on October 23, 2022 at 7:48 PM

One of this month’s Family Table Time topics is safety and behavior. While it’s important not to blame victims when bad things happen to them, it’s also important that teens know which behaviors might put them at risk.

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Topics: Family Day, parenting, teenagers, teens

We Have Something Extra to Celebrate This Red Ribbon Week

Posted by Informed Families on October 14, 2022 at 12:03 PM

Red Ribbon Week, celebrated annually from October 23-31, is the nation’s oldest and largest drug prevention awareness program targeted to K-12 students. The purpose of the commemoration is to raise awareness among the young about the use and abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and other harmful drugs.

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Topics: Family Day, parenting, teenagers, teens

About Us

We teach people how to say no to drugs and how to make healthy choices. To reduce the demand for drugs, Informed Families has focused its efforts on educating and mobilizing the community, parents and young people in order to change attitudes. In this way we counteract the pressures in society that condone and promote drug and alcohol use and abuse. The organization educates thousands of families annually about how to stay drug and alcohol free through networking and a variety of programs and services .

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