Safe Teens At Home Begins With Communication

School ending means more idle and alone time for teens, but experts say that can lead to dangerous habits.

Being alone in the home presents teens with more opportunities to get into medications and alcohol in the home. Overton County Anti-Drug Coalition President Daryl Colson said that the most important thing parents can do to avoid issues is to take precautions, and have the hard conversations with your kids.

“If you don’t talk to your children about drugs and alcohol somebody will and the person that make talk to them about it may not be the person you want for them to talk about it,” Colson said. “It’ll likely be a peer or a teen or perhaps someone that is trying to push pills onto your child–children are going to be exposed to it in this day and age.”

Colson said parents need to make sure to lock up medications and alcohol to ensure they don’t fall into the wrong hands. Colson said Overton County offers free medication lock-boxes to residents to aid in those efforts.

In addition to easy access, boredom can also lead to issues with kids getting into things they shouldn’t. To combat this, Colson said the Overton County Anti-Drug Coalition will sponsor some movies in the park events for kids to occupy some of their time.

“Some activities for children to come out, watch a movie and have some popcorn in a safe environment to help occupy their time,” Colson said. “We know that idle hands tend to get in trouble a lot of the time, so that’s a couple of things we’re providing to help with that.”

Colson emphasized that the most important thing you can do when it comes to your kids’ safety around drugs and alcohol, is to have open communication with them, as well as keep tabs on their locations.