Posted by Five Mom, Becky Dyer, on Thursday, August 19, 2010
Throughout the summer, each of the Five Moms will be posting a video interview as they share their unique stories that led them to join the campaign. In this video, Becky Dyer, a deputy sheriff with a long history in drug-abuse education, shares her personal journey as a Five Mom over the past three years and encourages parents to educate themselves and talk to their kids about the dangers of cough medicine abuse.
I have the great opportunity to speak with kids on a daily basis about the dangers of drug abuse. But so often it's hard to reach the parents, so when I heard about the campaign, I realized this is more of an educational awareness campaign for parents, I definitely wanted to get involved.
Probably the lack of knowledge that parents have that this abuse actually occurs. I know I was rather surprised of the number of kids that were doing this.
So, that's been a big surprise that, you know, a lot of parents know about the illegal drugs, but they didn't know what signs to look for, how to even talk to their kids about the abuse, so that's been a big surprise to me.
So, talk to your kids. You need to educate yourself first and then share that knowledge with your teenagers, even talk to grandmas and grandpas about this kind of abuse. But talking to your kids is so important, because they look up to you. You talk to them them they're 50% less likely to use drugs at all. So that is a huge step to preventing cough medicine abuse in your own home.
No, our online website has been successful. I would say just keep doing what we're doing. Try to get more involved locally, in our own communities. Sponsor more town hall meetings.
Just keep spreading that word because even though the actual activity, from studies, is not rising, but it's also really not lowering either. So we know that's still occurring. We hear about it every once in a while on the news.
I think this is a behavior that definitely flies under under the radar, and it's not detected by law enforcement or parents. So just keep educating our neighbors, our friends that we go to church with, PTO groups.
Just keep spreading that word, because the more and more everyone is educated and is aware, then eventually this problem will no longer exist.
Our campaign is simple: moms telling other moms. It started with the five of us, and word is spreading fast.
Take a moment and tell all the parents you know about how to stop teen cough medicine abuse.
The Five Moms Campaign has a community on Gather.com. It is a place for parents to communicate about cough medicine abuse. Your voice matters; come and talk with other moms.
