President's Message - April 2022

When trying to teach our kids to avoid drugs and alcohol, doesn’t it sometimes feel like we’re fighting a losing battle?

Too many people think that illegal drug use and drug overdose deaths can only happen to other people’s kids. Or to “losers” who come from a “bad” background.

After Stanford University student Katie Meyer committed suicide last month, her parents said they’d seen “no red flags.”

It’s important that kids be allowed to make their own choices as they grow older. This helps them develop their decision-making skills, which they’ll need throughout their lives.

The war in Ukraine is heartbreaking and has been at or near the top of the news for the last couple of weeks. There’s no way kids have missed the constant coverage, but they probably don’t understand what’s going on.

I recently participated in a debate on “Florida Voter Forum” over whether Florida should legalize recreational marijuana use for adults 21 and over. My opponent, Michael Minardi, campaign manager for Regulate Florida, is leading the push to pass HB 467, which would legalize marijuana for all adults.

Two senators have introduced a bipartisan bill to give parents “easy-to-use” tools to help them keep their kids safer online. Introduced by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the Kids Online Safety Act proposes to force online platforms to create ways parents and kids themselves can block harmful content and better control their feeds.

One of the topics in this month’s popular and useful Family Table Time kit concerns the subject of patriotism.

All through the pandemic, parents and their children wanted nothing more than to return to normal life: regular in-person classes vs. Zoom learning, daily interactions with their friends.