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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.
FREQUENTLYASKED
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 this
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 make 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 make The Safe Home
Pledge can be open about their activities with their children.
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. That is not the goal of The Safe Home
Pledge. We can do three things:
-
provide a safe social
environment for teens in our own 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 drugs use will not be
tolerated.
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