Talking Tips: #Alcohol

Tips from the experts on how to talk to your kids about alcohol: Start early, by age 9. Parents should start talking with kids early, by age 9. That may seem young, but the AAP says that kids are very aware of alcohol by that age but also start to think positively about alcohol between […]

What’s In Your Medicine Cabinet?

Curiosity killed the cat, as the saying goes. A key component of the adolescent experience involves exploring consciousness and experimenting with mood-alteration. While not all teens turn to substances to do this, teenage experimentation is a common and developmentally normal part of this life stage. In addition, teens share information at a rate that would […]

What is Hookah?

According to the American Lung Association, hookah is a water pipe used to smoke a kind of tobacco called shisha. Shisha comes in dif­ferent flavors and is also called nar-ghile, argileh, shisha, hubble-bubble, and goza. Hookah use be­gan centuries ago in ancient Persia and India. Today, hookah cafés are gaining in popularity around the world, […]

Join the Ranks of Your Friends & Neighbors!

Join the ranks of your friends and neighbors by giving a gift to support the Alliance for Safe Kids. All donations made by 11:59pm on December 31, 2015 will be matched – dollar-for-dollar! Please know that, regardless of the amount you choose to give, your gift supports an organization that works directly in the community where you live […]

What should parents know about Twitter?

You probably know about Twitter — the microblogging service that features 140-character “tweets” — but you may not realize how much of a staple it is in teens’ social media lives. According to the Pew Research Center’s Teens, Social Media & Technology Report, 33 percent of all American teens use Twitter and average 95 followers […]

Drunk Driving Ruins the Holidays

If you’re enjoying the holidays with a drink, the Yorktown Police Department has a message for you: Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over. Due to the increase in drunk-driving-related fatalities around the holidays each year, law enforcement agencies across America will be actively searching for and arresting drunk drivers from December 16 to January 1. […]

There’s no place like home…

There is no place like home, especially during the holiday season. At the Alliance for Safe Kids, our home is Yorktown. We live here and raise our families here. And thanks to help from friends like you, we are reshaping and improving our community.Several accomplishments over the past year illustrate our progress… Youth Mental Health—50 adults […]

Have You Heard of Snapchat?

Snapchat: A messaging app that lets users put a time limit on the pictures and videos they send before they disappear. Why it’s popular: Snapchat‘s creators intended the app’s fleeting images to be a way for teens to share fun, light moments without the risk of having them go public. And that’s what most teens use it […]

Explaining the News to Our Kids

by Caroline Knorr, Common Sense Media  Shootings, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, end-of-the-world predictions — even local news reports of missing kids and area shootings all can be upsetting news for adults, not to mention kids. In our 24/7 news world, it’s become nearly impossible to shield kids from distressing current events. Today, kids get news from everywhere. […]