#TalkEarly: Parents talking with parents about underage drinking
Monday was an exciting day for us at The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility (Responsibility.org). It marked the official launch of our new #TalkEarly program, a partnership with eight incredible and influential parenting bloggers to empower parents to be confident about their own decisions regarding alcohol, model healthy, balanced behaviors and create a foundation for starting conversations with their kids from an early age.
Prior to the launch of our program, we spent nearly two years conducting research on what parents who read parenting blogs think and how they access information about underage drinking. The data revealed that those parents overwhelmingly want to hear from people they trust on how to talk to kids about alcohol and that bloggers are among these trusted sources. In fact, 85% of survey respondents want to read blog posts on the subject of talking with kids about alcohol. Of those moms and dads who read parenting blogs, 91% said they wanted to hear from other parents with older kids on how they handled conversations with their kids about alcohol. Further research revealed that there is almost no conversation taking place in social media about these topics. Why is that? It certainly isn’t that parents don’t care, right? Are parents conflicted about their choices? Our goal is to explore these questions and start healthy, productive and smart conversations.
We took these insights to heart and built the new #TalkEarly program to bring valuable information to parents through the channels and voices of our experienced and trusted blogging partners.
To officially kick-off the program, we invited each of our bloggers to our offices in Arlington, VA. We spent the day hearing from experts in the field of child development and education. We also had fun over an ice cream sundae bar and our very own video shoot (more on that next month).
Over the course of the next six months, our bloggers will be writing in-depth about what they learned during yesterday's summit and exploring other important topics. By joining forces with influential parenting bloggers, we at The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility hope #TalkEarly inspires more conversations between parents and friends while providing parents with the tools to continue such dialogue with their kids for years to come.
We want families to talk early, talk often and be healthy. Join the conversation by following @TalkEarly on Twitter.
