I hope this post finds you and your family well during this holiday season. We are going to focus on a Risk Factor for substance use today, and that risk factor is the lack of adult supervision. Just to recap, a risk factor is a factor present in a youth’s life that makes it more likely they will use substances. Today’s risk factor may seem like it should be common sense, but I encourage you to keep reading even if you think this isn’t a factor in your household, because there may be some areas that you haven’t thought about.
I’m sure if you think back to your own growing up years many of you can think of various situations you were in that probably weren’t the safest or best ideas. For many of us these situations occur when we were in a situation where there was no or very little adult supervision. The fact that you were in those situations definitely didn’t mean your parents were bad parents, but times were different before the age of cell phones and social media. Let’s face it, our kids live in a different world today, which can be both good and bad, so let’s talk about how adult supervision has changed and what we can do as parents and caregivers to protect our children.
- Physical Supervision– This category is a tale as old as time. When kids are left together, and no parents or adults are around to supervise they sometimes don’t make the best decisions. Life happens though, and it isn’t always easy to make sure our children are supervised all the time, especially in households with working parents. If your child is going to be riding the bus home from school and coming home to an empty house everyday I encourage you to invest in a home security system or outdoor cameras. You could use these systems to ensure that your child is arriving home safely, and monitor if your child is alone or if there are others with them. Surprise visits are also a great strategy to monitor your child’s behavior. If your going to be working all day on a Saturday and your child will be left at home unsupervised, talk to your supervisor and see if you can change up your lunch hour or break times to allow you to run home and check in on the kiddos at home, but don’t tell the kids what time you will be checking in. This gives you the element of surprise and allows you to see what is truly going on in your home. If you are concerned about your child’s behavior or lack of supervision see if you can find a trusted friend or family member to supervise your children while you are away.
- Electronic Supervision– I’m going to use a broad term and refer to this category as electronic supervision because it encompasses so many devices that our children now have access to. In this category I am referring to cell phones, tablets, iPads, video games, computers, and basically any device that has messaging capabilities or internet access. Luckily for our parents, this wasn’t an issue when we were growing up, so learning how to supervise your children across their electronic devices has been a learning curve for parents and has sparked a lot of controversy. The bottom line is social media and these devices are a huge part of our children’s lives, they put our children at risk for all sorts of dangers and it is important that we find a way to effectively supervise our children’s electronic device usage. I’ve talked to lots of parents and have heard a lot of different ideas about HOW to monitor your child’s device usage including but not limited to reading their messages, befriending them on social media, putting away laundry while they play video games, and soo many more. I feel that in this situation you have to find what really works for you and your child, and remember they are SMART! Kids are likely to outsmart us when it comes to technology and ways to hide what they are doing, so what I am going to encourage you to do may be a little different than you expect. I encourage you to schedule non screen-time for your kids. This means schedule time in their day or night where they are doing something besides looking at any kind of electronic device. Maybe this means no phones at the dinner table, leaving their phone on the kitchen counter after 8 p.m., going outside to play basketball as a family in the evening and phones staying inside, or even making a charging station in a common area where all phones and devices are kept to be charged. We may not be able to watch every move our children make when they are using electronics, but we can make sure they are getting breaks from those devices. My next tip is to talk to your kids about the dangers of the internet. Talk to them about how what they put out into the internet can never truly be taken back, how people’s lives can be changed because of one comment or picture, and how there are people out there that do not have their best interests at heart and could potentially target them. I know that supervising electronic usage isn’t easy, but it is just as important as physically supervising our children.
In summary, lack of adult supervision is a risk factor for many reasons. When children are left with little or no supervision they may be more likely to make poor choices or engage in risky behaviors. Social media and electronic usage could also play a role in putting our kids at a higher risk for substance use, so its important to monitor and limit device usage the best we can.