Back-to-school season is in full swing.
Many students (K-12 and college) are already back in the classroom. Some students, like mine, do not return until after the county fair has concluded in a couple of weeks (seriously, county fairs are a big deal and as a city girl, I just don’t understand). Regardless of the date of the first day of school, school is about to start!
Back-to-school marks the beginning of a new year. A fresh start. A new beginning.
And with that in mind, I’m writing a back-to-school series this week.
Five posts.
All focused on the ties between back-to-school season and community health.
Monday’s post focused on pandemic learning loss, Tuesday was all about disease spread in the classroom, Wednesday’s post included a checklist for back-to-school preventive care, and yesterday I covered mental health.
Today is all about SAFETY
(and yes, it is a day late — I dropped the ball yesterday in the midst of course prep, meetings, and the need to empty the furniture from our bedrooms so that the carpet can be ripped up on Monday. Thanks for your patience.)
Hoping this post helps to educate and empower you
to be healthy and create healthy classrooms & communities.
There is nothing earth-shattering or ground-breaking about the list below. It includes a (short-ish) list of topics/instructions related to being safe this school year. This list is intended to serve as a reminder for adults as well as something to share and serve as a conversation starter with the children and young adults in our lives.
Being safe this school year includes —
Car Safety
➡️ Seat belts MUST be worn. All the time. Every car ride. And properly — the shoulder strap much be snuggly across the chest (not wrapped around the back for comfort). According to the CDC, seat belts dramatically reduce the risk of death and serious injury. Among drivers and front-seat passengers, seat belts reduce the risk of death by 45%, and cut the risk of serious injury by 50%. Seat belts prevent drivers and passengers from being ejected during a crash. People not wearing seat belts are 30 times more likely to be ejected from a vehicle during a crash. More than 3 out of 4 people who are ejected during a fatal crash die from their injuries.
➡️ NEVER get into a car with someone who has been drinking or is high.
NEVER.
Talk to your kids about this. Make a plan — if they are out with friends and it is unsafe for them to get home, what will you do? Can they call you for a ride? do you set up an Uber account on their phone? is public transportation an option? Have a plan in place so your child knows exactly what to do. Getting into a car with someone who has been drinking or is high is NOT an option. Make this crystal clear. And plan in advance for how you are going to handle it. Also, make it clear that there will be no judgment or punishment associated with following the plan that avoids getting into a car with an unsafe driver.
Cigarettes & Vapes
➡️ No-No-No-No-No. According to the CDC, cigarette smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causes many diseases, and reduces the health of smokers in general. Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States. This is nearly one in five deaths. Smoking causes more deaths each year than the following causes combined —human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, and firearm-related incidents. More than 10 times as many U.S. citizens have died prematurely from cigarette smoking than have died in all the wars fought by the United States.
Plus cigarettes are addictive and expensive.
And vapes — vaping is both unhealthy and dangerous. According to the Partnership to End Addiction, the more immediate health effects include coughing and wheezing, behavioral and mood changes, headaches, seizures, vomiting, and potential severe lung injury. Vaping also negatively affects teens’ attention, learning, and impulse control in a way that can affect them in school, sports, and social situations. And although they are less common, vape fires and explosions can occur. These are dangerous to the person using the vaping product and others around them. There may be added dangers, for example, if a vape battery catches fire or explodes near flammable gasses or liquids, such as oxygen, propane, or gasoline.
Drugs & Alcohol
➡️ No-No-No-No-No. Conversations about drug and alcohol use with our children cannot center around this is what you will NOT do. We all know that telling someone not to do something is basically tempting them to at least think about doing it (there’s a science behind this way of acting). Instead, conversations about drugs and alcohol use should focus on addiction and the acute risks associated with their use. Talking about addiction can be hard, but there are a lot of online resources to help. Additionally, we need to talk with our kids about the dangers of overdoses from drugs. An estimated 109,680 overdose deaths occurred last year, according to the CDC. That’s about 2% more than the 107,622 U.S. overdose deaths in 2021. Additionally — every day, about 37 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes — that's one person every 39 minutes. In 2021, 13,384 people died in alcohol-impaired driving traffic deaths — a 14% increase from 2020. These deaths were all preventable.
All conversations about drug and alcohol use should focus on protection and love. Rooting conversations in love and protection, NOT you will not do this, takes more time. Those conversations are shown to be more effective at protecting our children.
Consent
➡️ Teaching our kids to respect their own and others' bodies is essential. While many people associate consent with sex, it is so much more. Consent is an ongoing process of discussing boundaries and what you’re comfortable with. We talk about consent in our house pretty much every day — our daughter is not a hugger (I am). I am often told don’t touch or hug me. She’s establishing a boundary. And as much as I want a hug from her, she does not want to be touched. I go to my snuggly kid for the hug. Respecting my teenager’s boundaries is important. She shouldn’t have to tell me no twice.
Teaching consent should be the bedrock of all conversations about sex. But it also should be used to prevent harassment, abuse, and sexual violence.
Safe Phrase
As many of you know, ALIAS is my favorite TV show. In season 2 (episode 13 Phase 1, which is my all-time favorite), Sydney is on the phone with her dad, Jack. Jack instructs Sydney to “take the side streets, there’s construction on the freeway” at the end of the conversation. It’s awkward, but as Sydney hangs up the phone she bursts into tears. She explains to her CIA friends that that is the code phrase she developed with her dad to serve as a warning that one of them was in trouble.
➡️ Develop a secret phrase with your family. Having a code phrase that means I’m in trouble without saying so directly is a great idea. Your kids might not be comfortable calling and saying they are uncomfortable at a party when surrounded by other party-goers. Or maybe the situation is so uncomfortable they don’t have words. Develop a casual code phrase — take the side streets, for instance — that says I want your help without saying I want your help. This phrase can mean — get me out of here. Or I need you now. But it is an exit and safety strategy. It should be something that can be both easily remembered and worked into casual conversation.
Whatever the words — it is your family's signal that someone is unsafe and wants help immediately. No questions. No hesitation. It is a red flag that someone needs help right away. It is your family bat signal. Develop your family safe phrase this weekend.
Back to school is the time to talk with our kids (of all ages) about safety. While conversations about drugs, consent, and drunk driving may make you uncomfortable, we need to be having these conversations to prevent bad things from happening in the future. Conversations about safety should be ongoing. And they should be two-way — where we listen to what our kids have to say, what they are curious about, or what their fears are.
And these conversations may take some work on our part as adults — not only will we need to forego the hug we want from our teenagers (my heart does hurt a little), but we may need to do a little research to better understand addiction as a disease and how it can be prevented.
This work is prevention. It is necessary work. And there is no time like the present — back-to-school season — to get started on this work.
If you have questions or want help — obviously we talk about all of these topics and more continually at our house. While I am not perfect at communicating, I have lots of practice. I also have an opinionated teenager who is happy to provide a critique. Happy to share what I’ve learned, what’s working in our house, and how to get the conversations started. Let me know what you need as we all work to create safe environments and prevent adverse health effects —
And be sure to share this with others, including your kids. It could be the icebreaker you/they need!