Facebook - Do Your Kids Need Help?

Facebook is a great tool to keep in contact with your kids, but it also might be one way to see if they need help.

We love seeing the pictures on sites like Facebook; a great way to get a peek into our kids lives away from home. Those same pictures might help point to a drinking problem, but at the same time give us a way to help get it under control.

College drinking has been an issue for just about as long as colleges have been around. But over the last few decades it seems to have gotten worse, with more college students getting injured and even nearly 2000 getting killed every year because of alcohol.

According to the authors of a new study just published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one way we might be able to help them is by seeing what types of pictures they post on Facebook type sites. These researchers looked at what students posted on social network sites and how much they admitted drinking on a separate survey. Those students who posted pictures and updates on Facebook about being intoxicated, or things that happened to them because of drinking too much, like long hangovers of accidentally ending up in someone's room overnight, also were considered to be in an at-risk category for problem drinking.

And even though many college students block their parents from seeing these pictures over relatives often aren't blocked and should recognize these issues as well. The goal here, according to these researchers is, if you find troubling photos or posts on Facebook, to simply ask your college student, "are you doing alright." A big first step to stop a big problem.