Warm weather is with us at last, and as we see from the police report this week, unfortunately the number of vandalism and party complaints is on the rise too.

As the parent of teens, we think that nearly all of them are great kids. But this time of year, as school is winding down, has always been a time of high spirits for kids. It is especially important for parents to pay attention to what their kids are up to. Even great kids can have really lousy judgment (that’s why they’re still kids) when it comes to hosting parties with alcohol.

The Garden City Police Department has a special program which allows parents to sign a waiver that allows the police to shut down parties in the home and confiscate any alcohol. We think this makes a lot of sense - if your child knows you’ve signed the waiver, they might be less likely to throw a party in your absence. For more information, contact police headquarters.

Another warm weather issue: a lot of homeowners like to use fire pits or chimineas in their back yards. From experience, we’d recommend that anyone who has one of these should be sure they have a working fire extinguisher in the house (you should have one anyway). We had the experience of having our defective chiminea crack open, releasing hot coals from its bottom. Fortunately, we were able to put the fire out quickly - and after that replaced our home fire extinguisher with a super heavy duty model.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher