With an eye toward greater understanding and interaction between borough parents and students, the Haddonfield Municipal Alliance announced several initiatives to bridge the generation gap and keep children healthy and safe.
One of the HMA’s projects slated to be rolled out this fall, according to Alliance member Mike Romea, is the creation of notepads reminding parents to engage their children in discussions about key subjects. The wording will read, “Engage your child in a discussion. Whether you’re talking about school, the game or a tougher topic, it’s important to healthy decision-making.”
It is planned as an extension of the DAWGS campaign, short for “Discussions Are Worth Getting Started,” which was introduced, last spring, as cards roughly twice as large as Trivial Pursuit cards. The cards were meant as conversation starters based on specific topics such as drinking, smoking and drugs, with three questions below each topic intended to kick-start a dialogue between parents and children.
“A new study from the department of medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles, conducted by Dr. Mitchell Wong and his colleagues, suggests that an effective way to prevent drug use among early teens is to more regularly engage parents in their teen’s academic life. The HMA is continuing to work with the Haddonfield School District to help keep parents a step ahead,” Romea said.
Last school year, the HMA partnered with the Haddonfield School District to send home a mailer to parents to warn of the risks associated with vaping, and also held a parent focus group at the high school. This new method of “smoking” ended up being more prevalent than parents had realized and more dangerous than kids perceived, said Romea.
“In many cases, we felt this was the first time Haddonfield families had been truly alerted to the trend reaching our community. While we feel Haddonfield families have made strides this year, we recognize the problem has not gone away,” Romea added.
“National and local media have been filled with stories about the dangerous activity, and legislation is being proposed. We continue to share these concerns.”
On Wednesday, Nov. 13, Haddonfield Middle School is expected to hold a full day of assemblies for staff and students related to vaping, and will be presenting a program intended for all district parents in the evening. The program is being co-sponsored by the Municipal Alliance, and should be a prime opportunity to give families town-wide more tools to battle what is quickly becoming a new epidemic.
For more information about past and present HMA initiatives, visit: alliance@haddonfield-nj.gov.
