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Parents Need to Know

A Clear Message from Clay, Platte and Ray Prosecutors: “Don’t Provide Alcohol to Minors”

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As the school year wraps up and the summer season approaches, Parent Up is joining with local prosecutors and prevention coalitions to remind parents and caring adults of their crucial role in preventing underage drinking.

The overwhelming majority of youth are not engaging in substance use because the adults in their lives are protecting their health and safety.

Local prosecutors witness first-hand the tragic and avoidable harm caused by alcohol and drug misuse, and feel the negative consequences are even more significant when it happens among teens.

In response, our prosecuting attorneys in Clay, Platte, and Ray counties have partnered with Parent Up’s Parent are Rock Stars campaign and have issued letters to Northland parents and caregivers, reminding them that providing alcohol to anyone under the age of 21 is illegal—and encouraging them to talk to their children about remaining alcohol-free. This partnership aims to empower all Northland parents and caregivers to set firm boundaries, have clear conversations, and take action appropriate action if they learn of underage drinking. Read each county prosecutor’s letter below:

This partnership aims to empower all Northland parents and caregivers to set firm boundaries, have clear conversations, and take action appropriate action if they learn of underage drinking.

Parent Up is here to help as we navigate these discussions with our kids and fellow parents. We have age appropriate conversation guides, tips for navigating the prom and graduation season, and some creative ideas for you to take action if you know of adults who are providing alcohol to minors.

If you want to learn more about how you can help or need resources to talk to your child about alcohol, head on over to our Alcohol Page.

– Parent Up Staff

How to Protect Our Kids from Deadly Fake Pills

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In today’s rapidly changing world, it’s more crucial than ever to stay informed about the dangers that can impact our kids and teens. Two of those dangers are fentanyl and xylazine: Substances that are being put into pills that appear to be prescription or legitimate medicines, but are actually illegal counterfeit pills that can be deadly. 

Deaths caused by these poisonings are rising, which has led to the increase of unexpected loss of teens and young people in our Kansas City communities.

Fentanyl and xylazine are in our state, our city, and our communities. As adults, we need to take action today to protect our kids from these fake pills laced with lethal substances.

Continue reading to find out which pill is fake below. Photo from DEA.gov.

What is Fentanyl?

Fentanyl is a synthetic (man-made) opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Only 2 milligrams of fentanyl, just a few grains of sand, can be fatal to an adult. This deadly drug cannot be detected by sight, smell, or taste. It can be impossible to tell if a pill is real or fake just by looking at it. Recent DEA lab tests revealed that 7 out of every 10 pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose. This deadly drug is used by illegal drug makers to create fake pills that look like real medication. Prescription pills purchased online are often fakes made with fentanyl. Because of this, our kids may encounter fentanyl anywhere – online, at school, or on the street.

Two miligrams of fentanyl, a lethal amount for most adults. Photo from DEA.gov.

What is Xylazine?

Xylazine is a non-opioid tranquilizer used in veterinary medicine, and is not approved for use in humans. It is often mixed with other drugs, most commonly fentanyl, to either enhance drug effects or increase street value by increasing weight. Like fentanyl, this drug is put into fake pills that look like legitimate pills by illegal drug makers. Prescription pills purchased online are often fakes made with fentanyl, and increasingly, xylazine as well. In fact, Missouri experienced a 180% increase in xylazine-related deaths from 39 deaths in 2021 to 109 in 2022.

The most worrying aspect of xylazine is that because it is not an opioid, life-saving Naloxone does not work on xylazine. However, it’s important to note that because xylazine is often used with opioids like fentanyl, naloxone should still be given for any suspected drug overdose or poisoning.

Local law enforcement has pulled together a drug task force to address supply and track down those that sell these incredibly dangerous substances and fake pills. The DEA is working these cases too and urging the media to get the word out.

How might our teens encounter these fake pills?

While it might be difficult to imagine your teen would ever experiment with pills, it’s important to acknowledge the very real reasons why teens may encounter or seek out pills:

  • The teen brain is experiencing every emotion very intensely as it grows and develops rapidly. Some teens may turn to pills to cope with stress, anxiety or depression.
  • Teens might be feeling pressure to excel in school or sports, and some may believe that pills can help boost their academic or athletic performance.
  • The teen brain is hard-wired to take risks. Some teens might experiment with pills to fulfill risk-seeking urges.
  • Some teens may think: “It’s medicine, so it can’t hurt me, right?” This misunderstanding of the dangers of taking pills not prescribed to them might give the false impression that it’s safe to try, especially if they see their family or friends doing so. 

If our kids are not warned, and given the support they need, they may think pills are the solution to their problems. The majority of teens and young adults who report misuse of prescription pills are buying or getting them from friends, family, and even acquaintances over Snapchat and other apps popular with teens. To teens, these are seemingly harmless transactions for a pill – maybe a “study drug” or “sleeping pill,” but they could lead – and have led to – unimaginably tragic consequences in our communities.

It can be impossible to tell if a pill is real or fake just by looking at it. Photo from DEA.gov.

What Can We Do to Protect Our Kids?

Our goal at Parent Up is to support parents and caregivers in their efforts to keep kids from engaging in substance use. By taking steps to reduce pill misuse, we can reduce the likelihood that our teens would take a potentially fatal pill laced with fentanyl or xylazine in the future. We encourage parents and caregivers to use our 4Cs to prevent pill misuse in youth:

  • CARE: Educate yourself about the harmful effects of pill misuse, especially for kids and teens. Check out our Prescription Drugs page to start! We break down the most commonly misused prescription drugs by teens, the risks, and the warning signs to look for. We also have free helpful tools and resources for you to download, print, and share.

     

  • CONNECT: Connection is key to prevention! Kids who have stable, healthy relationships with adults are more likely to make safer decisions and live healthier lives. Learn more about simple ways to connect with your kids every day by watching this 14-minute TED Talk. Learn more about the amazing value of having regular family meals together by visiting our Meaningful Meals page.

     

  • COMMUNICATE: Talk to your child early and often about medication safety and have specific conversations about the dangers of misusing pills. Emphasize to teens and kids that they should never share their prescription pills with anyone and to never take anyone else’s pills. Take a strong stance against using any substance, including pills, to deal with your problems. 
    • Let your child know you will help them if they are seeking relief from anxiety or depression. Discuss the steps to legally and safely obtain appropriate medications from a doctor, if needed. Assure your child that their mental well-being is a priority and that they have options for relief other than taking matters into their own hands.
    • Practice what to say if they are offered something. These roleplays let your child know you support them and help give them confidence if a situation arises where they need to say “no.” You can also work with your teen to come up with a code word to text you if they feel like they need your help to get out of an unsafe situation.

       

  • CAREFUL ATTENTION: You know your child and what is or isn’t typical for them. Be on alert for changes in behaviors, friend groups, or attitudes. Take action if you see early warning signs of pill misuse. You can find these warning signs on our Prescription Drugs page.  
    • Keep track of which prescription medicines you have in your house and how many. Store prescriptions in a secure place only you know about. Don’t keep powerful prescription medicine in your bathroom medicine cabinet where just anyone can find it.
    • When you have unused, unwanted, or expired prescriptions, don’t keep them around your home. Keeping these types of medication out of the house entirely will drastically limit the serious risks to kids and teens! Dispose of these medicines at your nearest local dropbox location or make a plan for safe home disposal. 

Here are some other helpful resources too:

Click this image to download, print, and share our helpful fentanyl poisoning prevention handout!
Click this image to download, print, and share our helpful medicine safety handout!

Thank you for taking action today. Share this Insight and help protect area kids.

– Parent Up KC Staff

Note: This Insight was originally published on November 8, 2023 and has been updated by Parent Up KC Staff.

Make the Most of Dinners with Your Teen!

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Dr. Anne Fishel is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at the Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Family and Couples Therapy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is the executive director and co-founder of The Family Dinner Project, a non-profit initiative based at Massachusetts General Hospital, that helps families online and in communities to have better and more frequent family dinners. She has lectured to parents, teachers, and health professionals about the benefits of family meals and written numerous articles about family issues for NPR, The Washington Post, Psychology Today, The Los Angeles Times, PBS, and others.

Her book about family dinners, Home for Dinner: Mixing Food, Fun and Conversation for Happier Families and Healthier Kids, is available through Amazon. She is a co-author with The Family Dinner Project team of Eat, Laugh, Talk: The Family Dinner Playbook.

“Of any age group, teens may have the most to gain from eating dinner with their families. Numerous studies over the last 25 years reveal that dinners can protect teens from engaging in a host of risky behaviors: smoking, drinking, getting pregnant, developing an eating disorder, and using drugs. Teens who dine with their families also report experiencing less overall stress, feeling more known by their parents, and having better relationships with them (CASA, 2012).”

“Why do family dinners offer such benefits? The simplest answer is that dinner is a reliable occasion for teens to feel connected to their parents. It is this connection that provides the real seatbelt on the potholed road of adolescence.

Dinnertime also creates the opportunity for parents to check in and monitor their teens’ behavior without putting their kids on the hot seat. Instead, questions about their day are softened by answering while enjoying a delicious meal, and by hearing about everyone else’s funny tales of the day.”

“The really good news is that when teenagers are asked to list the activities they most enjoy, family dinner is consistently ranked high on that list.”

“That said, teens can be sulky, irritable, prickly and challenging, and may not make the easiest dinner companions. Not only that, but their schedules may seem too busy to fit in regular dinners, what with sports practices, after school jobs, hours of homework, and heavy social media upkeep.

So, how can parents make dinner compelling for adolescents, and enjoyable for everyone else in the family? Showing up at the dinner table with certain parental attitudes may help:  Showing interest in your kids’ new discoveries (e.g. music, friends, favorite athletes, video games, etc.) without judging them; tolerating strong expressions of feelings; and talking in a more honest and self-disclosing way about your own lives, if these disclosures are relevant to your kids’ struggles.

Adolescence is also a time when kids are figuring out who they are and how they want to be similar to and different from their parents, and they have the brainpower now to engage in philosophical and abstract thought.  It is no wonder, then, that this is a time when kids may declare that they have food preferences that differ from their parents. Consider the New Yorker cartoon of two teenage girls talking. One says to the other: “I started to be a vegetarian for health reasons, now it’s just to annoy!” But this kind of questioning of parental values can also lead to rich conversations about things that matter.”

How to Keep Dinner as Lively as Your Teenagers

  • Agree that dinner will be off limits for discussing conflicts—no talk about homework, or whose turn it is to take out the trash, or a recent “D” on a math quiz, or how late the curfew should be on Friday night.

  • If possible, parents as well as teens should make dinner a technology-free zone. If this isn’t possible, then negotiate rules that everyone can agree to, such as: ‘We’ll only use our phones to resolve factual disagreements that come up at dinner’ or will only use it to play a game like Selfie Hot Potato.

  • If scheduling conflicts with dinner time, consider having a healthy after-dinner, take-a-break-from-homework snack. This might be frozen yogurt with berries, a bowl of soup, or cheese and crackers.

  • Initiate conversations about subjects that matter to you and to your children. Did you read an article in the newspaper today that confused, upset, or delighted you? Talk about it and ask for your kids’ reactions. Check out our Conversation of the Week blog for more ideas.

  • Offer to make a new meal, based on your teen’s interests—if they are studying Chinese history or Indian literature, check out www.epicurious.com and search for recipes by country. Even better, make that new meal with your child so that they can teach you something about another culture they know more about than you do.

  • Invite your kid to make a course or part of the meal, particularly something fairly quick (but special and dramatic) that will elicit “oohs” and “ah”s from the rest of the family. Popovers, fruit smoothies, or a vegetable or fruit no one has ever tried before (anyone for dragon fruit?) all do the trick.
  • Speak about your own experiences of the day in a way that is honest and self-disclosing, perhaps revealing something that was embarrassing or challenging. Or, repeat a joke that you heard at work.
  • Ask your teen to choose music for you to listen to during dinner. On other nights, you might play your own music, or play the music that you listened to when you were your child’s age. Both will give you something to talk about that may be of great interest to your teen.

  • Since adolescence is a time of increased exploration, buy cookbooks when you travel to new places, ask for recipes at restaurants, or from the parents of your child’s friends. Some of my favorite recipes are ones I’ve requested from a Chinese mother raised in Hawaii whose cooking my son raved about whenever he visited.

“Some of these suggestions may fall flat like a pancake. Others may get you only a few more minutes of conversation at the table. Still others may not work the first few times you try them. When it comes to parenting teens, persistence pays off, so don’t let a little pushback or negativity keep you from trying again.”

Watch the recording of Dr. Fishel’s Why Family Meals Matter webinar!

To watch for free, just register here: tinyurl.com/FamilyMealsMatter

The Northland Coalition Prevention Network and Parent Up hosted The Family Dinner Project for an engaging webinar for parents and caregivers on the benefits of family meals! Anyone can view a recording of the webinar by registering at tinyurl.com/FamilyMealsMatter. Learn about the academic, mental health and nutritional benefits of family meals. Dr. Fishel discusses mealtime challenges and great strategies to overcome obstacles.  She motivates and empowers caring adults with games to play at the table that will spark conversation as well as tips to get kids to give you more than just a one-word answer.

Read Parent Up’s “Giving Devices a Seat…Away From the Table” Insight!

There’s incredible value in getting your family to sit down and have meaningful meals, but there’s a lot of things that get in the way. Check out our newest Parent Up Insight for tips on giving your devices a new seat away from the table!

Read Insight Here!

Check out Parent Up’s free resources to help families have more meaningful meals!

We make it easy to have more meaningful meals more often with your family on our Meaningful Meals page. Check it out!

Visit our Meaningful Meals page!

Note: This insight was originally written by Dr. Fishel for Parent Up in February 2022 and has been reposted.

9 Ways to Root Your Family in Resilience

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As parents or caregivers, we know you want the best for your kids and hope that they get to stay in their carefree kid phase for as long as possible. The reality, though, is that kids DO face challenges. As parents and caregivers, you play a crucial role in helping your kids develop the resilience to overcome those challenges.

What is resilience?

According to the American Psychological Association, resilience is the ability to adapt well to adversity, trauma, tragedy, or significant sources of stress. It is a tool to help manage uncomfortable feelings such as anxiety, uncertainty, or stress. Resilient kids are better equipped to handle the everyday challenges of life and cope with problems they encounter. And the good news? Resilience can be built in kids (and adults!) of all ages, starting at home.

Here are nine ways families can root their children in resilience starting NOW!

  1. Give yourself (and your kids) grace. It’s safe to say that we all make mistakes. When we acknowledge mistakes, and talk about what can be learned from them, it lets our kids know that when they make mistakes or face challenges, it will be okay! 
  1. Provide structure for kids. Predictability and routine help make kids feel safe and give them purpose. Every second of your day doesn’t need to be planned out, but consider including things like morning and nighttime routines, blocks of time for school work or unstructured play, or even time set aside to plan/talk about what’s going on that day. Just as important as having routine, however, is to model flexibility. Our kids will be watching to see how we respond when we’re running late, as unplanned things pop up, and when life’s other common disruptions pop up.
  1. Practice your own self-care. Drink water, take breaks, maintain a consistent sleep schedule, move your body, color, read, do things you enjoy most. Taking care of yourself is essential for taking care of kids, and will help you and your child(ren) be better equipped to handle stress or challenges. 
  1. Model positive coping skills. Put words to your positive coping actions, for example:  “Whew, I am feeling stressed.  I’m going to take a walk. Want to come too?” If you find yourself reacting to a situation with a negative coping skill, talk with your child about how you would handle that differently next time and talk to them about what they would do if they were ever feeling that way.

  2. Find intentional moments to connect. A report from Harvard University suggests that the key to resilience in youth is one stable and committed relationship with a supportive adult. To build that connection, utilize meal time, car rides, or set aside time to just talk, play, and be together. Strengthening these relationships before challenging or stressful times can help ensure that your child has at least one person they feel comfortable talking to when those times do come.
  1. Foster a sense of community. In addition to building connections with you, find places within your neighborhood, school, or larger community where kids can feel connected to others. Whether that’s joining a club, volunteering, attending larger family gatherings, or even just hanging out with peers, building a community where they feel included can promote resilience in the long run. 

  2. Teach problem solving; don’t give answers. Sometimes it’s easier to give kids answers and solutions to small problems, because we’ve been there and done that! However, kids need that opportunity to build those skills and practice coming to a successful solution on their own. Try asking them questions that might lead them to a solution and build their confidence in solving small problems by themselves.

  3. Move towards your goals. Model goal setting for yourself and help your child(ren) set reasonable goals. Setting goals can help kids feel a sense of control and as they accomplish those goals, build their confidence. In this process you’ll have the chance to help them identify stepping stones towards their goals, manage setbacks, evaluate their plans, and most importantly, celebrate successes big and small.
  1. Choose an attitude of gratitude. Focusing on things you are grateful for is instant stress relief! With practice, focusing on gratitude can help build emotional resilience by encouraging us to focus on the positives instead of the negatives. You can model gratitude, especially in hard times, by saying things like “Even though this is hard, I’m glad we have each other for support.” 

Youth in our community have tremendous potential and we all benefit when this potential is realized. The Roots of Resilience campaign is excited to partner with individuals, organizations, and various areas of our community to ensure that our actions support youth resilience and mental health. When we are intentional, and work together, we can ensure that ALL kids have the opportunity to thrive! Learn more about building resilience in your kids – and yourself – at RootsOfResilienceKC.com! 

Roots of Resilience KC Staff

How Can I Support Teens in Taking “Safe” Risks?

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If you’ve ever said, “What were you thinking?!” to a teen, you’re not alone! Luckily, a basic understanding of teen brain development can help us as adults understand why teens behave the way they do, even if we’re not neuroscientists. And this understanding is crucial to guiding teens towards safe, healthy exploration and away from harmful risks like vaping. It might sound crazy, but it’s true: Our teens need to take risks as a part of their normal growth and development!

Why Our Teens Take Risks

As our teens grow up, the impulsive, risk-taking, and emotional center of the brain (the limbic system) and the logical, planning, and reasoning part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) are in a race to the developmental finish line. The emotional system crosses first, leaving the reasoning and thinking portion of the brain to catch up.

This makes the teen brain like a car with the gas pedal to the floor and no brakes: The limbic system is well-developed, acting as a powerful accelerator encouraging teens to take risks, act on impulses, and seek new experiences. But the prefrontal cortex is still in development, making teens less likely to stop and think things through, modify their behavior, or fully consider the consequences of their actions. The good news is that the prefrontal cortex does catch up later in life, closer to the age of 25 when our brains finish developing into adult brains.

Dr. Adriana Galván, an expert on adolescent brain development who runs the Developmental Neuroscience Lab at UCLA, found in her research that teens learn faster – and with better accuracy – than adults because of teens’ very active striatum – the reward center of the brain. This reward center is most active in the teen years and it’s very sensitive to rewards, enabling teens to learn new things much more quickly than adults, like learning a new language or how to play an instrument. And this makes sense for this time in life, right? The teen years are full of amazing learning and growth, about ourselves and the world around us! But Dr. Galván’s lab also found that teens with a more active reward center are more likely to take risks and to like it. This can spell trouble for teens if their risk-seeking brain is introduced to vaping (or other drug use). Dr. Galván poses this question in a great short video about the teen brain:

“Rather than ask how you keep your teenager from taking risks – because we know the brain is really oriented toward risk at this time – it’s better to ask, how do I provide opportunities for healthy risks?”

How We Can Help Our Teens Take Safe Risks

Now, with our teens’ remarkable brains driving their learning and exploration, we get to step in and guide them towards things that scratch their risk-taking itch, but prevent negative consequences to their health and safety. Safe risk-taking doesn’t put your child in danger, but it does require them to risk something — like failure or criticism. And there are great benefits to taking safe risks! Safe risk-taking can boost our teens’ confidence, leadership skills, planning skills, and can help them learn to resist their impulses – all important skills to learn and practice for adulthood!

Here’s how you can start supporting teens in identifying and taking safe risks:

  • Talk to teens about their interests, passions, and their favorite things to do. Ask questions about what makes them happiest, what’s the most exciting thing they’ve ever done or can imagine doing, or what would they do if they had a whole day to do whatever they wanted. You can really think outside the box here! Do they enjoy sports? Does art excite them? Are they interested in music? Do they enjoy helping people or animals? These conversations will help you connect with your teen and also point you both in the right direction for your next step.
  • Help teens brainstorm some opportunities or challenges around their interests. For example, if your tween loves basketball, encourage them to try out for the team. If your teen enjoys painting, encourage them to enter a local art competition or display at their school. If they’re interested in music, maybe they can try out for the band this year, or audition for first chair if they’re already in band. If they love animals, challenge them to volunteer at an animal shelter weekly. If they have an interest in movies or TV, encourage them to try out for the school play, even if they’ve never acted before. There are so many possibilities! See what your child gravitates toward, then help them make a plan to get started!
  • Set teens up for success by supporting their needs where you can. Help your tween or teen think through what they’ll need to do this activity and ask them how you can support them. What equipment, tools, or materials might they need? How will they get to and from their activity? Who might they need to contact in order to get started? Whether it’s a ride to practice, an opportunity to shadow someone, or helping them buy materials, try to support them as best you can. Remember: Showing up to cheer them on or being a shoulder to lean on is free!

It’s important to note that we’re guiding and supporting our kids here. If they start to get off track, resist the urge to jump in and take over. If we give them too much help, it can negate the learning experience and their sense of control. Let them navigate through the process and follow up on how they’re feeling. If they are hesitant to try something new, you can talk about your own safe risk-taking successes and failures. Whatever the activity, our teens’ interest and passion will help drive teens to stick with it, even when things get tough. That being said, teens can change their interests as they explore the world and learn more about themselves. It’s okay if one of these ventures doesn’t pan out like they thought it would, there are always others to try!

To learn more about how we can help keep our kids safe from vaping (and all drug use) and prevent addiction, check out the rest of our website here at ParentUpKC.com!

Deadly Pills in the Northland: Time to Take Action

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Law enforcement in our area are seeing deaths among Northland teens and young adults linked to pills that appear to be prescription pills or legitimate medicines. These illegal pills are laced with the deadly drug fentanyl and it’s impossible to tell which ones are counterfeit. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Just a few grains of sand worth of fentanyl can be fatal. These pills are being sold on the black market and there is no regulation of any kind. These teeny-tiny pills look harmless, but they’re far from it. They are here — in our Northland counties, neighborhoods and schools.

DEA lab tests reveal that 7 out of every 10 pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose.

Image Source: Kansas City Police Department

Before you think, “but not my child,” pause for a moment. The reasons teens might come across or seek out these pills are very real. Some teens seek help for sleep. Some think they will perform better in athletics or school. Some just want to take the edge off. Other teens seek out pills because they think it will help them with stress and pain. The anxiety and depression teens are feeling is tough. Some seek thrill and are willing to take the risk. They may think: “It’s medicine so it can’t be harmful, right?”  If our kids are not warned, they may think pills are the solution. Many of these deadly counterfeit pills are being sold over Snapchat and other apps popular with teens. To teens these are seemingly harmless transactions for a “pain pill” or something they believe to be Oxycodone, Percocet, Xanax or Adderall. But they could lead and have led to unimaginably tragic consequences.

Two milligrams of fentanyl, a lethal amount for most adults. (Photo from DEA.gov)

Local law enforcement has pulled together a drug task force to address supply and track down those that sell these incredibly dangerous pills. The DEA is working these cases too and urging the media to get the word out. Treatment agencies are overwhelmed with the severity and doing everything they can to provide the support to those who are struggling with addiction.

Just 2 milligrams of fentanyl is a lethal amount for most adults.

Two milligrams of fentanyl, a lethal amount for most adults. (Photo from DEA.gov)

Our goal at Parent Up is to support parents and guardians in their efforts to keep their kids from taking a fake or non-prescribed prescription pill or using other drugs.

Here are the tips we put out every 6 months or so, written by Kim Downs, a local parent and social worker. We love her take:

“As a parent, I urge you to take this growing issue seriously, and have specific conversations about it in your house. As a school social worker, I am hearing about this over and over. It is happening here and it is real.

Not sure what to say? Emphasize to your kids to never, ever take a pill from anyone or anywhere that isn’t prescribed to them by a doctor or out of its original container. Too many teens have the false perception that “medicine is safe, medicine can’t hurt me.” As caring adults, parents, and guardians, it falls to us to let our teens know the very real dangers of misusing prescription pills. Let your kids know where you stand. 

Let them know you will help them if they are seeking relief from anxiety or depression. Discuss the steps to legally and safely obtain appropriate medications from a doctor, if needed. Be firm that self-prescribing can be deadly, and that your child should never take any pills not prescribed to them by a doctor. Assure your child that their mental well-being is a priority and then make a plan to get help together. They need to hear from caring adults that they have options for relief other than taking matters into their own hands.

Practice what to say if they are offered something. These roleplays let your child know you support them and help give them confidence if a situation arises where they need to say “no.” You can also work with your teen to come up with a code word to text you if they feel like they need your help to get out of an unsafe situation.

They might groan at you. Have these conversations anyway.”

Kim Downs, local parent and social worker

Song for Charlie is a family-run nonprofit charity dedicated to raising awareness about ‘fentapills’ — fake pills made of fentanyl that are poisoning our teens.

SongforCharlie.org recommends you say this to your teen:
“You have to assume that any “prescription” pill you buy outside of normal channels is fake, and very possibly deadly. NO RANDOM PILLS!” (They made this short video that you can use in your discussion with your teen.)

Image source: Song For Charlie (songforcharlie.org)

Download and share Parent Up’s one page fentanyl handout to keep our teens safe!

Download and share our one page handout for parents of younger children to keep them safe now and in the future!

Here’s some other resources we think are really helpful too: 

Thank you for taking action today. Give this article a share and help protect area kids.

– The Parent Up Team

Note: This post was originally published on November 18, 2021, but has been updated several times since to reflect more recent local conditions and resources.

Making the Most of Dinners with Your Teen

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Dr. Anne Fishel is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at the Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Family and Couples Therapy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is the executive director and co-founder of The Family Dinner Project, a non-profit initiative based at Massachusetts General Hospital, that helps families online and in communities to have better and more frequent family dinners. She has lectured to parents, teachers, and health professionals about the benefits of family meals and written numerous articles about family issues for NPR, The Washington Post, Psychology Today, The Los Angeles Times, PBS, and others.
Her book about family dinners, Home for Dinner: Mixing Food, Fun and Conversation for Happier Families and Healthier Kids, is available through Amazon. She is a co-author with The Family Dinner Project team of Eat, Laugh, Talk: The Family Dinner Playbook.

Of any age group, teens may have the most to gain from eating dinner with their families. Numerous studies over the last 25 years reveal that dinners can protect teens from engaging in a host of risky behaviors: smoking, drinking, getting pregnant, developing an eating disorder, and using drugs. Teens who dine with their families also report experiencing less overall stress, feeling more known by their parents, and having better relationships with them (CASA, 2012).

Why do family dinners offer such benefits? The simplest answer is that dinner is a reliable occasion for teens to feel connected to their parents. It is this connection that provides the real seat belt on the potholed road of adolescence.

Dinnertime also creates the opportunity for parents to check in and monitor their teens’ behavior without putting their kids on the hot seat. Instead, questions about their day are softened by answering while enjoying a delicious meal, and by hearing about everyone else’s funny tales of the day.

The really good news is that when teenagers are asked to list the activities they most enjoy, family dinner is consistently ranked high on that list.

That said, teens can be sulky, irritable, prickly and challenging, and may not make the easiest dinner companions. Not only that, but their schedules may seem too busy to fit in regular dinners, what with sports practices, after school jobs, hours of homework, and heavy social media upkeep.

So, how can parents make dinner compelling for adolescents, and enjoyable for everyone else in the family? Showing up at the dinner table with certain parental attitudes may help: showing interest in your kids’ new discoveries (e.g. music, friends, favorite athletes, video games, etc.) without judging them; tolerating strong expressions of feelings; and talking in a more honest and self-disclosing way about your own lives, if these disclosures are relevant to your kids’ struggles.

Adolescence is also a time when kids are figuring out who they are and how they want to be similar to and different from their parents, and they have the brainpower now to engage in philosophical and abstract thought.  It is no wonder, then, that this is a time when kids may declare that they have food preferences that differ from their parents. Consider the New Yorker cartoon of two teenage girls talking. One says to the other: “I started to be a vegetarian for health reasons, now it’s just to annoy!” But this kind of questioning of parental values can also lead to rich conversations about things that matter.

How to Keep Dinner as Lively as Your Teenagers

  • Agree that dinner will be off limits for discussing conflicts—no talk about homework, or whose turn it is to take out the trash, or a recent “D” on a math quiz, or how late the curfew should be on Friday night.
  • If possible, parents as well as teens should make dinner a technology-free zone. If this isn’t possible, then negotiate rules that everyone can agree to, such as: ‘We’ll only use our phones to resolve factual disagreements that come up at dinner’ or will only use it to play a game like Selfie Hot Potato.
  • If scheduling conflicts interfere with nightly dinners, consider having a healthy after-dinner, take-a-break-from-homework snack. This might be frozen yogurt with berries, a bowl of soup, or cheese and crackers.
  • Initiate conversations about subjects that matter to you and to your children. Did you read an article in the newspaper today that confused, upset, or delighted you? Talk about it and ask for your kids’ reactions. Check out our Conversation of the Week blog for more ideas.
  • Offer to make a new meal, based on your teen’s interests—if they are studying Chinese history or Indian literature, check out www.epicurious.com and search for recipes by country. Even better, make that new meal with your child so that they can teach you something about another culture they know more about than you do.
  • Invite your kid to make a course or part of the meal, particularly something fairly quick (but special and dramatic) that will elicit “oohs” and “ah”s from the rest of the family. Popovers, fruit smoothies, or a vegetable or fruit no one has ever tried before (anyone for dragon fruit?) all do the trick.
  • Speak about your own experiences of the day in a way that is honest and self-disclosing, perhaps revealing something that was embarrassing or challenging. Or, repeat a joke that you heard at work.
  • Ask your teen to choose music for you to listen to during dinner. On other nights, you might play your own music, or play the music that you listened to when you were your child’s age. Both will give you something to talk about that may be of great interest to your teen.
  • Since adolescence is a time of increased exploration, buy cookbooks when you travel to new places, ask for recipes at restaurants, or from the parents of your child’s friends. Some of my favorite recipes are ones I’ve requested from a Chinese mother raised in Hawaii whose cooking my son raved about whenever he visited.

Some of these suggestions may fall flat like a pancake. Others may get you only a few more minutes of conversation at the table. Still others may not work the first few times you try them. When it comes to parenting teens, persistence pays off, so don’t let a little pushback or negativity keep you from trying again.

Watch the recording of Dr. Fishel’s Why Family Meals Matter webinar!

To watch for free, just register here: tinyurl.com/FamilyMealsMatter

The Northland Coalition Prevention Network and Parent Up recently hosted The Family Dinner Project for an engaging webinar for parents and caregivers on the benefits of family meals! Anyone can view a recording of the webinar by registering at tinyurl.com/FamilyMealsMatter. 

Learn about the academic, mental health and nutritional benefits of family meals. Dr. Fishel discusses mealtime challenges and great strategies to overcome obstacles.  She motivates and empowers caring adults with games to play at the table that will spark conversation as well as tips to get kids to give you more than just a one-word answer.

Giving Devices a Seat…Away From the Table

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Have you noticed that at Parent Up, we ARE OBSESSED with encouraging families to sit down and eat meals together?! Why the bias?  Well, it’s the simple “benefits outweigh the costs” argument:  Having-regular, unplugged, eat-whatever-wherever-as-long-as-you-connect-together meals is associated with lower rates of substance use and depression, better peer relationships, more self-esteem, and even better grades! More meaningful meals = healthier, safer and smarter kids!  

There’s a lot of things that get in the way of having meaningful meals – activities, school, work schedules – families are busier than ever!  Then there’s toddlers and teenagers who might dish out a few servings of attitude, pickiness, and exhaustion too.  BUT, if we’re honest, there’s probably another thing that gets in the way of your family sitting down, connecting and conversing over a meal:  The Digital Age. The times have been a-changin’ and family meal time looks a lot different now than it did even 20 years ago!

Common Sense Media commissioned a poll of nearly 900 families with children between the ages of 2 and 17 years old and they found that “devices aren’t welcome but often have a seat at the table anyway.” Their research found that even though 88% of adults don’t think it’s OK to use a phone at a family dinner, 47% of parents said they or a family member used a mobile device at dinner in the last week. Thirty-four percent said they had the TV on for all or most dinners.

There’s often a really good reason to have these devices out; you saw something funny today on a post from a friend or there’s details to confirm for tomorrow.  But, unless we’re careful, devices have a way of creeping in and taking up more of our meal-time attention than we desire.  The consequence of this imbalance of more tech and less-eye contact, according to researcher Sherry Turkle, paints a bleak picture, leaving all of us with less empathy, compassion and connection.

Can you make your meal-time more meaningful by giving devices a seat away from the table?!  Once the meal is ready, ask that everyone put their devices on silent or leave them in another room.  It will be more likely to happen if you make this an identified spot.  We’re encouraging families to make an Unplugged Box: a mobile home for your mobile phone during meals (and any other times you want to unplug)!  Putting devices in a place away from the table will ensure that they don’t distract from this important, meaningful time together.

Our goal here at Parent Up is to help parents have the tools, resources, and confidence to raise kids that are healthy and drug-free.  We will be around the Kansas City Northland community this fall, sharing the good news about the impact of family meals and providing you with a box and supplies to make your own unplugged box!  We are excited to partner in this project and help your family be more intentional about mealtime.  Watch out, you might like it so much, you become obsessed with it too!

 – By Parent Up KC Staff

Fentanyl in the Northland: What We Can Do

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Kim Downs is a lifelong Kansas City North resident and has been a licensed school social worker in the area for nearly 20 years. She is passionate about removing barriers to learning and is an agent of support to students and families. She enjoys a good hike in the mountains, wandering a museum, traveling, and spending time with her family.

Kansas City police officers have been raising the alarm, and it’s a message that parents need to hear loud and clear:  Fentanyl-laced pills are causing teen deaths in the Northland and around the Metro. Before you think, “not my child,” pause for a moment. Many of these deadly counterfeit pills are being sold over Snapchat and other apps popular with teens. To teens, these are seemingly harmless transactions for a “pain pill.” But they could lead – and have led – to unimaginably tragic consequences.

Take this growing issue seriously, and have specific conversations about it in your house. As a school social worker, I am hearing about this over and over. It is happening here and it is real.

Not sure what to say? Emphasize to your kids to never, ever take a pill from anyone or anywhere that isn’t prescribed to them by a doctor or out of its original container. Two-thirds of teens and young adults who report misuse of prescription medicine are buying or getting it from friends, family, and acquaintances. Too many teens have the false perception that “medicine is safe, medicine can’t hurt me.” As caring adults, parents, and guardians, it falls to us to let our teens know the very real dangers of misusing prescription pills. Let your kids know where you stand. 

From the DEA, two milligrams of fentanyl, a lethal amount for most people. DEA.gov, Photo date: 7/2/2018

 Let them know you will help them if they are seeking relief from anxiety or depression. Discuss the steps to legally and safely obtain appropriate medications from a doctor, if needed. Be firm that self-prescribing can be deadly, and that your child should never take any pills not prescribed to them by a doctor. Assure your child that their mental wellbeing is a priority and then make a plan to get help together. They need to hear from caring adults that they have options for relief other than taking matters into their own hands.


Practice what to say if they are offered something. These roleplays let your child know you support them and help give them confidence if a situation arises where they need to say “no.” You can also work with your teen to come up with a code word to text you if they feel like they need your help to get out of an unsafe situation.

They might groan at you. Have these conversations anyway.

The Magic of Family Meals

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How has family meal time changed for you this year? Has your family had to adapt to new school and work schedules, making it harder to fit in meal time together? Or has your family had more at-home meals than ever? Are you officially tired of cooking, or maybe you or have developed a surprising love for trying new recipes? Has it been awhile since you’ve had the opportunity to eat a restaurant meal? Or maybe you’ve been able to try some new restaurants with carry-out and delivery options this year?

We’ve almost been in a pandemic for a year now, so no doubt your family’s meal patterns have changed from what they were last year at this time. No matter what situation your family finds itself in right now, here at Parent Up we want to encourage you to keep family meals together a high priority. As parents, a lot is thrown at us about what we should or shouldn’t do to help our kids. Some of this advice seems achievable, and some of it can seem overwhelming. The thing with family meals is this: a relatively low time commitment can lead to great long-term benefits for your children and your family.

 

Research points to family meals as helping to increase children’s academic performance, literacy, and connection to family, while decreasing the risk of depression, substance use, and obesity. Family meals have been researched for many years now and the outcome is clear:  Family meals make a positive difference. If you are already having family meals most days, great job! If not, think about how many times your family currently sits down together for a meal per week. How can you slowly improve on this? Make it simple for yourself and give yourself grace as you incorporate more family meals into your routine. Here are some things to keep in mind:

 

1. Keep it simple. Things are busy, and some nights following a recipe just isn’t happening. Planning ahead of time helps a lot, but if you haven’t planned ahead and find yourself stressing over a meal, give yourself permission to do something simple. Open a couple cans of soup, make a plate of cheese and crackers and lunchmeat, fix some boxed mac and cheese or a simple sandwich. Having good nutritious meals is great of course, but don’t miss out on the benefits of family meals just because you don’t have the ingredients or motivation to cook a big meal. We’ve all been there! Even a simple meal together can provide the benefits of family connection.

 

2. It doesn’t have to be “dinner.” If your family’s schedule works out better to have breakfast together some days, or an after-school snack at the table, or even a late night dessert together on a weekend, then make that your priority! Think about what works for your family, set your goals, and take some little steps to make it happen!

 

3. Work towards limited distractions at mealtimes. Put away the phones in a special bowl or make an “unplugged box” that you keep away from the table and turn off the tv. This allows for each family member to listen to one another and build a conversation without competing with electronics for attention.

 

4. Encourage kids to participate in meal preparation and conversation. When they participate in making the meal, kids build responsibility and feel more connected. To help kids with conversation, have them come up with questions that they want to ask parents or find some simple table-time questions and ideas to get started.

 

Make 2021 the year where family meals rise in your priority list. Visit ParentUpKC.com/Meaningful-Meals, where you can find more information on this topic, as well as simple recipes and table talk ideas. Parents, you’ve got this!

By Parent Up KC Staff

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