Download a printable English & Spanish PDF newsletter here or read below.
Let's Talk Newsletter Fall 2023
Building Health Habits
Back to school can be a difficult time for both parents and children. Parents can make this time easier by helping their youth build healthy habits, building refusal skills, and
being a reliable source of information and facts.
Be an Example
If you don’t use drugs, the young people around you will follow your example. In addition, smoking raises your child’s chance of getting asthma, allergies, ear infections, bronchitis, and pneumonia. If you smoke, the best thing you can do for your child is to quit. If quitting isn’t possible right now, don’t smoke around your child. Go outside and don’t smoke in the car. Cigarettes are a “gateway” drug.
Deal with Stress Well
Everyone feels stress sometimes, even kids. Show your child healthy ways to deal with stress. Avoid using alcohol, marijuana, or e-cigarettes to relax. Instead, try things like deep breathing, walks, time outs, and talking with a friend.
Making Healthy Choices
- Promote autonomy and self-care.
- Keep healthy snacks at home.
- Make exercise a family activity.
Build Refusal Skills and Have a Plan
- ENCOURAGE activities and friendships that support/reinforce healthy choices, including non-use of substances.
- PRACTICE language your child can use when faced with a decision about substance use that helps them be confident with their own choice without shaming friends:
- “No thanks, it’s not my thing.”
- “I’ve got practice tomorrow.”
- “I’m good, thanks.”
- MAKE an exit plan such as a “code word” and be willing to be your teen's excuse when they need to get out of a risky situation.
The One Choice Toolkit can help!
Be a Reliable Source of Information and Facts
Peer pressure is more likely when teens have misperceptions about their peers’ use (“everybody’s doing it”) or when substance use is inadvertently “glorified.” For adolescents, the science is clear: ANY use puts them at risk.
Non-use is self-care
The adolescent brain is uniquely vulnerable to substance use. 90% of adults with a substance use disorder started using marijuana, alcohol, or nicotine before age 18.
“It’s just a few beers” is just not a reality:
For youth, all substance use is connected.
Teen substance use is not a rite of passage
Unlike when many parents/caregivers were young, most teens DO NOT USE substances today. Help them know they’re not alone when they make One Choice – they are the majority.
Resources
StartTalkingNow.org
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
We can all help prevent suicide. The 988 Lifeline provides24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States. (¡Los servicios de texto y chat de 988 Lifeline ya están disponibles en español!)
For more information, visit
www.esd123.org/services/student-support or contact Briseida Chavez at
[email protected] or Monica Garcia at
[email protected].
Ask Us For Lockboxes!
Medication safety can start with YOU! You can make a significant impact right here in our community. Ask us about obtaining a FREE medication lock box.
Know the Facts:
-
75% of opioid misuse starts with using medication that wasn’t prescribed for them – usually taken from a friend or family member. Source: Partnership for Drug-Free Kids
- Deadly opioid overdoses – from prescription pain killers, fentanyl and other similar substances – increased by nearly 40%, tripling the rate of any other increase in the past decade. Source: WDOH, May 2021
- Every 10 minutes, one child under the age of 6 is still being seen at an emergency room after accidental medicine ingestion, despite a steady decrease since 2010. Source: Safe Kids Worldwide
LocksSaveLives.org
This newsletter is a product of the ESD 123 Student Support Department. For more
information or access to additional resources please visit www.esd123.org/services/student-support