Read This: Gratitude...improves your health and your quality of life!

It’s November - the perfect time to feel and express gratitude. Sometimes we are so busy grumbling about what didn’t go our way that we forget to be grateful for small things, nice weather, a smile or a cup of coffee.

Life is not perfect. Where did we get the idea that it was supposed to be perfect? The shiny magazines and media telling us to do more, be more, buy more? Have you noticed that even those who appear to "have it all" don’t have perfect lives? Life is messy. Be grateful for life’s imperfections. It makes it more interesting.

I am saddened that our country is so divided. Yet, I am grateful that we live in a democracy and have the freedom to choose.

I am overwhelmed by 24/365 technology. Yet, I am grateful to text with my grandkids and send a birthday gift certificate with the touch of a button.

Did You Get The Red Ribbon Message?

Did You Pass It On Correctly?

During Red Ribbon Week®, the red ribbon is used to symbolize the importance of a healthy, drug free lifestyle. This year’s theme, YOLO. Be Drug Free.® was created by two sixth graders in Claysburg, Pennsylvania. It reminds us to take care of our minds and our bodies.

Years ago I directed an after-school program. No matter how hard I tried to educate and set my students on a path to success, if their parents or caregivers weren’t delivering the same message at home, the work was exponentially harder. Furthermore, when our overall environment is sending conflicting, unhealthy messages, we are stressed and challenged. I do believe that one person can make a difference in a child’s life, but by partnering with parents and improving community messaging, the likelihood of raising safe, healthy, drug free kids is vastly improved.

Do You Eat Dinner With Your Children?

Eating dinner together sounds so simple and yet, it is not today’s norm. Why? The answer has something to do with hectic schedules, after school activities and other outside influences that interfere with dinnertime. This reality is most unfortunate because research has shown that the more children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs.

So welcome to Informed Families’ first drug prevention tool of the school year: Family Day.  Family Day is a national effort, developed by the Center for Addiction & Substance Abuse at Columbia University, to encourage family dinners as an effective way to reduce youth substance abuse and other risky behaviors.  Join us on Family Day, September 26^th and learn how to have fun through simple exercises.

Building A Drug Prevention Network Across Florida

Today, there is a Heroin Epidemic sweeping across America. All of our plans, dreams, and hopes for educating children can be swept away by this Epidemic. How do we face and fight this heroin Epidemic to assure the future of Florida’s children?

No one wants their child to become a drug addict, yet we are all overwhelmed with many demands and problems. There is little time to work on one of our most important goals: Defeating the drug problem.

We must join TOGETHER, creating CRITICAL MASS and a NETWORK to deliver consistent messages across Florida and across America to turn the tide of this epidemic.

Joining together sounds easy but it is not easy. Working together can be complicated and time consuming, thus we frequently avoid it.

Since working together is essential; Informed Families/The Florida Family Partnership is making it simple to join together and deliver effective messages to our children.

Please Don't Eat The Cactus

This article is an old favorite, originally printed in 2006.

Do you ever feel life is moving too fast to tell your children how to to survive in today's world?

Let me assure you that this dilemma does not end with your children!  Just when you think you have completed your life’s work, you get grandchildren, whose role it is to teach us the lessons our children never taught us. We, of course, believe we are teaching them.

Let me illustrate this. Recently, my daughter Kerrie, broke her leg in a horseback riding accident, never mind that we have pleaded with her not to participate in horse jumping events until her 4 young children are at least in college. Subsequently, she was in bed for a week and was advised to remain on crutches for 12 weeks. Of course it was her right leg, so driving was out of the question.

I immediately flew to California to manage the household, which consists of her husband, Jeff, four children (ages 6-12), three very large dogs - a mastiff, an aging lab and a runaway-every-chance-it-gets German Shepherd, along with two horses. I felt badly having to take more time off from Informed Families, but I am now convinced that Informed Families should consider these visits field work and provide me hazardous duty pay.

Summertime & The Livin' Is Easy...Or is it?

Stress, anxiety, anger, violence and road rage are words that describe the current vibe.  How do we deal with the overwhelming negative environments that confront us daily, either on the news or in our own neighborhoods?

It makes us sad and depressed to see the senseless loss of lives in Orlando (bless those families) and in shootings in neighborhoods across Florida.  Has the world gone crazy?  Maybe.  It is time that we each ask ourselves, “how am I contributing to this craziness?”  Is this catching? The answer is yes.

So how do we raise safe, healthy and drug-free kids in the current environment?  We increase the PROTECTIVE FACTORS and we decrease the RISK FACTORS in our children’s lives.

Our children are listening and watching us to see how they should act and react to all this distressing news. Here are some tips for how to help our kids through tough times.

Social Media Demonstrates Power of Grassroots during Red Ribbon Week®

30 years have passed since DEA Special Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Mexico. Kiki’s tragic death led to the creation of the Red Ribbon Campaign®, now the oldest and largest drug prevention program in the nation. The National Family Partnership (NFP) turned Red Ribbon Week into a national event in 1988 and has sponsored it since that time. Many of you know that I’m proud to serve as NFP’s Volunteer President.

Times have changed since we started Red Ribbon. Red Ribbon Week is stronger than ever and I believe the internet and social media play a huge role. This year’s theme, created by a middle school student in Solon, Ohio, is “Respect Yourself. Be Drug Free.” The internet and social media are allowing us to see, in real time, many of the Red Ribbon Week activities, curriculum and events taking place in schools and communities across America. Parents, students, educators and community supporters from across America are sharing pictures, videos, ideas, articles and other content on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, featuring this year’s theme.

Additionally, NFP thanks the agencies, organizations, and businesses who are doing their part to spread the message. Fran Harding, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, and Chuck Rosenberg, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration co-authored a blog (shared below) entitled “Red Ribbon Week Reminds Us to Respect Ourselves by Living Drug-Free.” Discovery Education is hosting a Red Ribbon Week themed “Virtual Field Trip” and over 5000 educators and students will be viewing a lesson on Thursday. The National Institute on Drug Abuse is sharing tools for Red Ribbon Week, including interactive games and videos. Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America blogged about our 5th Annual National Red Ribbon Photo Contest.

Are you a Control Freak or do you play the role of a Clown or Hero?

Have you noticed how obsessed we are with our phones, being connected, texting, etc.? When someone is talking, is your brain busy developing a response; making sure to say “don’t forget this or that”?

We’ve become human doings rather than human beings. We try to fill every minute with doing something. Even relaxation is planned, attended and instructed.

When was the last time you sat down and took a good look at your family dynamics? Family Day is a good time to start.

In families, we learn “give and take” but our different temperaments create a dynamic where we learn to side step other people’s personalities and behavior. For example, the bossy person usually never sees that they are bossy…they are just trying to help. The rebel is unsuspectingly pushing to distinguish him/herself from the overachiever. The “family clown” doesn’t realize he’s uncomfortable and subsequently trying to lighten the mood.

Are You AWFULIZING or ACTUALIZING?

It is important for us to see and own our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. All three have a direct impact on those around us and shape the environment in which we live. They especially effect our children.

The beginning of the new school year is the perfect time to modify our thoughts, feelings and behaviors to create positive surroundings for our kids.

One of my favorite books is Our Children Are Watching by Susan Ford Collins. Susan taught a course on success filing, a skill that helps to get that awful, nagging voice out of our head. You know the one…the one that tells you that nothing is ever good enough. The awfulizing voice goes through a litany of what’s wrong…from the weather to the traffic to fill in the blank.

GOT PURPOSE? INTRODUCING THE RED RIBBON WALK & WRAP™