Keeping Kids Absorbed and Out of Trouble

At the county Government Center, dancers perform at last month's annual Girl Power! conference, which addresses such topics as substance abuse prevention, nutrition, sexual abuse and relationships. Below right, Courtney Jones gets exercise instruction from personal trainer Jesse Davis, right, with help from Tashanna Penn. (By Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post)

Rachel Brown, chatting and giggling with a friend, did not seem to be paying much attention to the game of capture the flag. But that was only a ploy. As soon as there was an opening, the 16-year-old dashed forward and helped her team seize the prize.

Rachel said the girls-against-boys game was her favorite activity of the second day of Fairfax County's Summer of Service & Fun program. The day camp started last week at Hoop Magic Sports Academy in Chantilly.

And if she had spent the day at home?

"This would be my schedule," she said. "Wake up at noon. Eat. Go back to sleep. Go swimming or something."

That, said Laura Yager, director of prevention services for the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board, is what she wants to avoid. She said Rachel's story is typical. Left to her own devices, she'd probably spend much of her summer parked in front of the television or lounging around the house. But with a nudge from her grandmother, she has enrolled in a day camp that includes miniature golf, a trip to Philadelphia and a community service project.

Yager and other county officials say it is important to keep teenagers involved in productive summertime activities. And if they needed a reminder of just how important such activities are, they got it in the pages of the recently released 2005 Fairfax County Youth Survey, which measured behaviors such as drug and alcohol use, gang activity and bullying.

Leisure and downtime are important, Yager said, but kids with too much time on their hands have a greater chance of getting involved in risky behavior.

"We have so many working families that the luxury of having someone home is not always existent," Yager said. "Anytime we have unsupervised youth, we have higher risk for behavior problems. So many of our kids are bright, healthy and happy, but they may not know what options are out there."

Even though many camps and programs are underway, there are still lots of things for teenagers to do this summer. A rundown of programs offered by the Fairfax County Department of Community and Recreation Services, including the locations of evening drop-in sites, is available at 703-324-8336. In addition, sports camps, nature programs and other activities are offered at county parks. And officials suggest checking with religious and community groups.

The survey of young people's behavior, which is used by the county to figure out where the needs are, was completed by about 13,200 public school students, and it revealed some encouraging trends. It showed that fewer students are binge drinking, smoking cigarettes and using marijuana than five years ago. Randomly selected students in sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades answered a battery of questions in December.

Not all the news was good. Nearly 20 percent of students who are old enough to drive said they had gotten behind the wheel after drinking. Just over 50 percent of the participants said they had been bullied, taunted or teased. And about 5.5 percent of eighth-graders reported using inhalants in the previous 30 days, compared with 4.2 percent of eighth-graders nationwide.

"The good news is very strong, because we saw reductions in dangerous behavior in areas the school system was targeting, like alcohol and tobacco," said Kaye Kory, a School Board member from the Mason District. "It means that we are doing something right."