Safe HOME

The Safe Home Pledge is dedicated to helping provide a safe social environment for teens in our own homes. It offers an opportunity for parents to:

• join together to create open communication among parents;
• to prevent alcohol and other substance use by our teenagers; and
• to establish teenage party standards for both parents and our teenagers.
  

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why do we need a Safe Home Pledge?
Our young people are frequently faced with pressures to use alcohol and illegal drugs. Over-glamorized advertising of alcohol and peer pressure create an acceptable environment for substance use by youth. While most parents would agree that substance use is a risky behavior, many parents struggle with setting limits that will protect their child from dangerous activity. The Safe Home Pledge is a tool for addressing this problem.

The Safe Home Pledge is a parent networking campaign based on the belief that to prevent a child from using drugs, you need to create an atmosphere where drug use is not acceptable. When parents join together and take a united stand against drug use, they become much more effective than if they act separately. Parents can benefit from the support of other parents.

What is required if I sign the Safe Home Pledge?
Read the pledge with your children. Explain to your children your commitment to live up to the pledge. Then supervise teen social gatherings at your home and do not allow the use of alcohol and other drugs. The Safe Home Pledge will be renewed annually.

Your name may be distinguished in the student directory as a Safe Home parent. If a parent sees that another parent has signed the Safe Home Pledge, it provides an opening for discussion regarding the home environment and supervision of our children.

If I take the Safe Home Pledge, won't my child think I don't trust him/her?
Trust does not have to be "blind trust". Parents have every right to ask where their children are going and what they are doing. This is a much different world than the one in which we grew up.

Parents who take the Safe Home Pledge can be open with their children about their activities. They may tell their children that they are members of a group because they care and want to be informed about the world in which the child is living.

What if a family signs and then violates the Safe Home Pledge?
The Safe Home Pledge is a voluntary program and those who sign it are pledging on their personal honor to abide by it. The Safe Home Pledge contracts are not legally binding, but are statements of concern and intent. Parent groups, schools and those who sign the pledge are not able to guarantee or enforce compliance by others.

What about the teens who choose to drink anyway regardless of the Safe Home Pledge?
We cannot stop all kids from drinking or using drugs. That is not the goal of the Safe Home Pledge. However, we can do three things:

• provide a safe social environment for teens in our homes;
• send an unambiguous message to our children and all teens that we care about them; and
• inform other parents that if their children come to our home, they will be supervised and alcohol and other drug use will not be tolerated.