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I never thought I would be going to school with my kids.

The summer before my oldest daughter started kindergarten, I'd been warned at our neighborhood playground: "Stay away from those PTA moms. Once they get you in their clutches, they'll never let you go."

But the school community was new to us, so a few weeks in, I hosted an afternoon tea at my house so we could get to know the kindergarten girls and their mothers. Not long afterward, I had a playground conversation with a Mexican-American father of a fifth-grader, who admitted that he did not feel like a part of the community. Before I knew it, I had an organized an international potluck to replace the school's annual Harvest potluck, and created a multi-cultural committee.

I served as our PTA's first vice president of outreach. I was a member of the school's leadership team and served as a reading tutor. I competed for and won city and county grants to create a tile-mosaic reader board, renovate the playground and install an environmental rain garden.

I became one of those PTA moms.

Though it's clear I was (over)compensating for my pent-up career ambitions, my years of volunteerism were personally and professionally satisfying. And I'm happy to report that, in at least one instance, I broke the stereotype.

"You’re not a typical PTA mom," a refreshingly frank parent, originally from the South, told me. "You don’t have a stick up your ***."

I don't know if the expression "A little knowledge goes a long way" is appropriate, but here's what happened: The more I started caring about my kids' school — not just making sure my children were thriving academically and socially, but also that their teachers and administrators were well supported — the more I started caring about learning environments beyond our school, including those where the picture wasn't so rosy.

I began subscribing to newsletters from local education-advocacy groups. The information they provided was useful, but I had trouble distinguishing one group from another. I suspected I wasn't the only busy parent who was confused.

So I wrote an article about them. One article led to another; one publication led to another. And thus, I became an education reporter.

I saw that the education debates raging in my hometown of Seattle are the same debates being played out nationally. I started following national education journals and advocacy groups. It was only a matter of time before I began following what was happening with education internationally.

Our children look forward to summer, but parents of adolescents should remember it's an especially important time to talk to your kids about avoiding alcohol. Kristie Neklason, a substance abuse treatment and prevention expert with Youth Eastside Services, shares some insights on how to have this conversation on this week's KING 5 and ParentMap's Parent to Parent video. Watch now.

Being prepared, medications, blankies ... watch this tip-rich video to help make travel adventurous, fun and smooth.

While alcohol and marijuana are by far the most popular substances used by youth who choose to get high, there is concern about increases in the number of young people turning to heroin.

In the most recent Healthy Youth Survey completed in King County (given every two years in schools), just under four percent of 10th and 12th grade students reported using heroin. Youth Eastside Services, one of the largest adolescent drug and alcohol treatment programs in the area, had no clients reporting heroin use in 2010; in 2012, 6% of said they used heroin.

The King County Helpline had nearly 1,200 calls about heroin in 2012, the #1 call regarding drugs. Prescription pain killers were #2, with over 800 calls. Treatment for heroin addiction also rose substantially in King County between 2010 and 2012.

While these numbers may seem small, they are particularly concerning because heroin addiction is one of the most difficult to treat due to the painful withdrawal symptoms and strong cravings. It usually requires medically assisted detox, and even with that, treatment has a high failure rate. There is also potential for contamination of the drug, which can cause life-threatening reactions.

Most young heroin users start with abuse of prescription painkillers. In recent years, the efforts to educate medical providers and parents about the risks of these drugs has led to a decrease in their availability and an increase in the street price—upward of $80 per pill in some cases.

Heroin, by comparison, is relatively cheap—$10 for a hit that will give a person a high for two to four hours, or $20 for a small bag. Typically, young people begin by smoking heroin, which takes nothing more than a lighter and piece of tin foil. Signs of this kind of use include black smudges on hands, clothes, walls or carpet, and wads of tin foil in the trash.

Unfortunately, the addictive nature of heroin tends to result in increased use. The phenomenon known as “chasing the dragon” leaves a user trying to obtain the high they had the first time they tried heroin, which may escalate to shooting up, which is use by injection.

It’s hard for any parent to visualize the same child who wailed over every vaccination willingly inserting a needle into his or her own vein, but I assure you it is happening with teens in our area. Using a needle to inject drugs also comes with increased risks for diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis, from sharing needles. It is also easier to overdose via injection.

As parents, we need to be talking with our kids about all drugs—alcohol, marijuana, prescription medications and heroin. Talk about the risks, the damage to the growing brain and chances for addiction. Studies show that when parents express a strong disapproval for something, kids are less likely to participate in it. For more information on talking to your kids about drugs, and other issues of adolescence, visit SAMHSA.gov or drugfree.org.

Patti Skelton-McGougan is Executive Director of Youth Eastside Services (YES). YES is a nonprofit organization and a leading provider of youth counseling and substance abuse services in the region. Since 1968, YES has been a lifeline for kids and families, offering treatment, education and prevention services to help youth become healthy, confident and self-reliant and families to be strong, supportive and loving. While YES accepts insurance, Medicaid and offers a sliding scale, no one is turned away for inability to pay.

Do you have lofty travel goals for your family that you're having a tough time realizing? Today, we're giving away a new book on family travel, Family on the Loose: The Art of Traveling with Kids, which aims to help families realize their travel dreams, cultivate the next generation of global citizens.

Written by Ashley Steel and Bill Richards, world travelers and parents to two girls, it's packed with practical tips and stories that help families survive and thrive with kids on the road. (Read our Q&A with Ashley and Bill for some of their top tips.)

To enter to win, simply leave a comment on this post about something that's on your family's travel wish list. Include your email in the comment form (not publicly) so that we can contact you!

Additional entries will be given for the following (leave an extra comment for each action to let us know):

1. Become a ParentMap e-news subscriber
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5. Share this post on Facebook
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The giveaway ends Monday, June 17, at noon. We will leave a comment reply for the winner by the end of the day.

Make sure to check back to see if you've won if you haven't already heard from us by email!

Once upon a time, reading in the summer wasn't considered cool. Not anymore. With our bookish population and phenomenal libraries, tearing through books for prizes is as much a part of the Puget Sound summer experience for kids as spray parks and berry picking.

Libraries also offer many fantastic free events and programs throughout the summer, to keep kids (and adults) book-smart. Here's our roundup of local summer programs. Many have started already.

Seattle Public Library

The library kicked off its summer reading program by breaking the world record for the longest domino chain of, what else, books! (Watch the video to see it in action)! Appropriately titled “Expand Your Horizons,” this year’s summer reading program at SPL encourages children to discover new paths.

Reading logs can be picked up at your local branch library, along with a Reading Ranger button and coupons for prizes. The rules are simple. After reading five books, kids win a Reading Ranger window cling. If kids read ten books, they get a free paperback of their choice.

The fun part for kids (and adults) is tracking their reads, redeeming their prize coupons, and, of course, expanding their horizons with each new book.

There are other nice incentives for reaching the goal, including a free pass to the Burke Museum (it can be used between July 1 and Oct. 31, 2013).

Speed readers who finish their ten books by August 5 can enter their name into a drawing for the Breakfast of Champions at the Space Needle. In addition to regular story time offerings, SPL has tons of free programs planned all summer long, including African drumming workshops, songs and stories by local kindie band The Harmonica Pocket, as well as hands-on science and movement activities.

Teens can participate online in “Follow Your True North!,” and adults can join “Where Do You Want to Go?”