Monitor Your Child's Activities. Here's How!
With all the advantages they bring, technologies, such as Web sites, blogs, spam and text messages, can also expose teens to threats like dangerous drugs and put them in contact with dealers or sexual predators. Parents need to monitor their teens activities and help them navigate the temptations in the digital world. Heres how.

Latest Articles

• When Do Prescription Drugs Become Dangerous?
  Although we often hear about young people abusing “street” drugs, such as marijuana and methamphetamine, prescription medicines have become the second most frequently abused type of drug among 12- to 17-year-olds.
• Risky Business: The Choking Game
  Teens experiment with attitudes, appearances, and behaviors. While most of it is harmless, some experiments can have tragic results.
• Turnoff Week 2008
  Every day, children ages 8 to 18 spend more than 6 hours watching TV, playing video games, or using the computer for recreational purposes. The more time youth spend in front of the screen, the more likely they are to be overweight.
• Know What Your Child Watches on TV
  Nature programs, historical documentaries, game shows that test your mind—it’s all good stuff on your television. However, some dangerous and alarming programming is on the TV too!
• Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol
  In a typical high school class of 30 students, three have driven under the influence of alcohol in the last month, while 10 of those kids have been a passenger of a classmate who drove after drinking.
• Teaching Kids a Sense of Responsibility
  Too often, kids and parents tangle over who’s responsible for what chore around the house. But experts say to look beyond the individual chore at hand.
• Grandparents: Are You Cool?
  If your grandchild says to you, “You rock,” that’s a compliment. “You rule” is another compliment. Both mean that you are “cool.” If you’re described as “wicked cool,” then you have reached the top, you are extremely cool. Of course, depending on where you live, the words expressing compliments may be different.
• Hey, Mom! I'm a Vegetarian!
  One day, your child could come home and say: Mom, I’m a vegetarian! Or, your child also could come home and declare, “Hey, Dad, I am a vegan.” Such pronouncements can fill parents’ heads with questions and concerns. Is a decision to follow a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle a good thing? Why did my child decide on such a dietary lifestyle? How can I support my child in her decision?
• Healthy Eating on the Fly
  Many on-the-go families may feel like marathon runners as they move through their busy schedules. With work and school demands, family commitments, evening activities—and only 24 hours in a day—it seems that parents and children remain in near-perpetual motion.
• Energy Drinks: Power Boosts or Empty Boasts?
  Slick packaging, edgy themes, exotic ingredients, and special formulas are all part of the hype about energy drinks. A growing number of beverages promise quick energy as well as performance and nutritional benefits to athletes, students, partygoers—anyone who wants a pick-me-up. Yet, claims about these products often are inflated while health risks such as dehydration, overstimulation, and the double danger of combining energy drinks with alcohol receive little attention.