Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Most Parents Paying to Help Young Adults

A new study finds that more than 60% of today's young adults have received financial help from their parents. Among the 62% of young adults getting parents' help, the average amount was $12,185, says lead author Patrick Wightman of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Children who parents said were cheerful, self-reliant and got along well with others before age 12 were more likely to receive financial gifts or loans as young adults, Wightman says. And in families with more than one child, "if they perceive one of those kids to have a better attitude or to be more self-reliant, that kid has higher odds of receiving this type of support," he says.

The analysis is based on more than 2,000 interviews with 1,368 people ages 19-22 and their parents in 2005, 2007 and 2009.

About 42% of parents help adult children pay their bills, 35% help with college tuition, 23% help with vehicle expenses, and 22% help with rent away from home, researchers found.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/wellness/story/2012-04-27/Boomer-parents-provide-financial-help/54707250/1

Family Routines Cut Risk of Obesity in Kids

What if the real answer to the childhood obesity epidemic isn’t just diet and exercise? Two research studies done years and an ocean apart suggest that three family routines -- setting limits on TV, having family meals together and getting the kids to bed on time – could reduce kids’ risk for obesity by 40%, while food choices and exercise alone have proven less successful.

The two studies show that routines make a difference.  In the United Kingdom, a long-running study of over 14,000 school children found in 2005 that 17 variables – including food and breast-feeding as babies – didn’t seem connected with which kids became overweight. What was: The amount of sleep kids got each night, the amount of TV they watched, and whether their parents were obese.

In the US the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of about 8000 children is getting similar results.  When researchers looked at the household routines of a group of 4-year-olds from the study, they found three variables that were related to obesity. Obesity rates were much lower in families that simply set an average 2-hour limit on TV and other ‘screen time’, had meals together at least five nights a week and got kids to bed early enough that they slept an average of 10 ½ hours per night (a healthy sleep number for 4-year-olds). Just 14% of kids whose families practiced all three routines were obese, compared to 24% of kids whose families didn’t follow any of them.

To be sure, food and exercise are still important part. What the research is telling us is that without consistent healthy routines at home and warm supportive parents who can set limits as needed, that information on food and exercise is not going to help.

Source: Philly.com
http://www.philly.com/philly/health/Beyond-Food-and-Exercise--What-Children-Really-Need-for-Healthy-Growth.html

One in Four Babies Born to Unmarried Couples

A new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly one in four first-born babies, or 22 percent, are born to unmarried couples living together. The numbers jumped dramatically from 12 percent in 2002.

"More people are cohabitating and more people cohabitating are likely to have children," Gladys Martinez, lead author of the study, told ABCNews.com. "We were surprised by the numbers because it was quite a jump from such a short time, just 10 years ago."

The findings were based on data from more than 23,000 face-to-face interviews with American men and women ages 15 to 44. Men and women with lower education levels were more likely to have more children than people who attended college. Hispanic women were more likely to give birth at an earlier age and have more children than other races, as well.

Experts say a cultural acceptance of having children out-of-wedlock, along with the economic downturn, contribute to the dramatic jump in children born to unmarried couples who live together.

Source: ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/children-born-unwed-couples-rise/story?id=16125007#.T47fR-3lPZG

Troubled Homes May Fuel Obesity in Girls

Girls from troubled homes are more likely to be obese at age 5 than girls from happier ones, new research shows. However, researchers did not find that same association between boys' weight and difficult family situations.

In the study, researchers looked at data on more than 1,600 preschoolers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which tracks the health and well-being of children born to mostly low-income, single-mother families. About half were black, 27 percent were Hispanic and 22 percent were white.

When their children were aged 1 and 3 years, mothers were asked about six stressors: domestic violence, depression, drug abuse, housing insecurity, food insecurity (meaning that their household didn't always have enough nutritious food to eat) and whether the child's father was in prison. Children's height and weight were measured at age 5.

At 5 years old, 17 percent of the children were obese, defined as having a body-mass index in the 95th percentile or above, or being heavier than 95 percent of their peers for their height.

Girls whose mothers reported experiencing two or more stressors when their daughter was age 1 were twice as likely to be obese at age 5. If the mother reported experiencing two or more stressors when the daughter was age 3, the girl was also about twice as likely to be obese.

The study is published in the May issue of Pediatrics.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/04/16/troubled-homes-may-fuel-obesity-in-girls

More Parents Happy to Keep Kids in Nest

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 31 percent said young adults shouldn’t have to be on their own until age 25 or older. In a 1993 Newsweek study, 80 percent of parents pegged that age at 22.

Researchers say the new study is evidence that attitudes are catching up to new norms of adulthood, shaped both by a merciless economy and cultural forces that have been shifting for decades.

“It takes longer to become financially independent these days. Parents are adapting to a new reality,” said Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, who researches the path to adulthood at Clark University’s psychology department in Worcester, Mass. He has led an effort to recognize “emerging adulthood” –– age 18 through the 20s –– as a life stage between adolescence and adulthood, characterized by instability, exploration and often financial help from parents. More parents today wind up supporting their children even into their 30s, he said.

“It’s a bit jarring to them,” said Arnett, who is writing a book for parents of emerging adults. “On the other hand, most of them are willing to provide it and provide it without doing so grudgingly. They see it as necessary to their kids’ success.”

Arnett said that cultural changes since as early as the 1960s have led young adults to delay milestones such as marriage and buying a home. Parents have fewer children and higher incomes than in the past, so they can afford to help, and young people are willing to try more jobs while looking for the right one.

Help from parents can take many forms, such as chipping in for rent, opening the door to move back home or covering health and car insurance. The cellphone plan is often the last tie to be severed, Arnett said.

Source: Columbus Dispatch
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/02/25/more-parents-happy-to-keep-kids-in-nest.html

Dad, Can You Put Away the Laptop?

An interesting look at the technology role-reversal between kids and parents...

Forever, the screen-time battles between parents and children have gone decidedly in one direction, with the mothers and fathers nagging and threatening, and the kids fighting to stay connected to their digital devices.

But guess which family members are disgusted now?

“You can’t get my mom off that phone,’’ said Lucas Finzi, 7, a second-grader. He and his brother have tried shaking their mother’s iPhone from her hands, and turning it off while she’s mid-correspondence, to no avail. “We’ll be at the dog park and she’ll just start texting someone,’’ said Miles 10.

Aidan and Keira Mangan have the same problem with their father. The 4- and 3-year-old pound on David Mangan’s laptop’s keyboard to get his attention, stick their heads between him and the screen, and even fabricate potty-training accidents.

“Sometimes I bargain with them,’’ David said, sounding more like a middle schooler pleading to finish one more drive on the Madden NFL 12 game than the professional pharmacist he is. “Just give me 10 more minutes.’’

Kids have always fought household rivals for their parents’ attention, of course. But competing against a phone attached to a kitchen wall or a newspaper is nothing compared with going head-to-head with Facebook or Angry Birds. No one has calculated the number of iPhone (or tablet or laptop) orphans. But children who dream of talking to or playing with their parents without mom or dad stealing a glance at a screen may find it increasingly difficult.

It’s no wonder the kids are starting to push back, said Michael Rich, director of Children’s Hospital Boston’s Center on Media and Child Health. He sees patients, particularly adolescents, who throw their parents own digital addiction right back at them. “Why should I disconnect when you don’t?’’ they ask.

What’s happened to parents? A very small percentage of Americans - under 10 percent - are clinically addicted to technology, said David Greenfield, a psychologist who directs the West Hartford, Conn.-based Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. But about 65 percent of people definitely abuse it, he said.

Many kids are sincerely bothered by their parents’ screen habits and have resorted to shaming their parents. When Paula Touliopoulos’s 9-year-old daughter “caught’’ her typing an hour past when the Boston mom promised to stop working, the little girl admonished her. “What are you doing?’’ Arianna asked, appalled. “Texting?’’ “Never mind that you can’t text from a computer,’’ Touliopoulos said, her daughter was spitting out the worst word she could conjure.

Source: Boston.com
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2012/03/08/in_reversal_kids_now_nag_parents_to_step_away_from_their_phones_tablets_and_laptops/

Familes See Tablets As Playmate, Teacher, Babysitter

The rise of gadgets is ushering in a new generation of kids who are growing up digital. According to a Nielsen survey of adults with children under 12 in tablet-owning households, in the fourth quarter of 2011, seven out of every 10 children in tablet-owning households used a tablet computer – a nine percent increase compared to the third quarter of 2011.

Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed said children play downloaded games on their tablets and 57 percent said children used tablets to access educational apps. The portable gadget also keeps kids quiet while families are on-the-go: 55 percent and 41 percent of parents report that their children used tablets for entertainment while traveling or in restaurants, respectively. This can also include watching TV shows and movies, which 43 percent of children often do. Communicating with friends and family is a less popular function on tablets– only 15 percent of kids engage in this activity.

Source: Nielsen Co.
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/american-families-see-tablets-as-playmate-teacher-and-babysitter

Most U.S. Children Born Out of Wedlock

More than half of births to American women younger than 30 are outside marriage, research has found.

And across all ages, a staggering four in ten women are not married when they have children.

And with two-thirds of children in the U.S. born to mothers under the age of 30, it appears the majority of births across the country are out of wedlock.

The data was compiled by Child Trends, a Washington research group that analysed government data, and reported by the New York Times.

The paper reported that most college graduates marry before they have children, suggesting family structure is becoming a new class divide. "Marriage has become a luxury good," Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Times.

The results carry concerning consequences, with researchers finding children born out of wedlock are more likely to struggle in school or suffer emotional and behavioral problems.

Source: Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103235/Most-children-U-S-born-wedlock.html

Parents' Strict Rules Could Curb Kids' Drinking

By imposing strict rules about alcohol, parents can reduce their kids' impulses to drink, according to a new study.

Tight parental control over drinking helps inhibit what's called "approach tendencies" in teens, the researchers explained in the study published online and in the May print issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Approach tendencies refer to a person's inclination to approach or avoid a stimulus.

With repeated alcohol use, cues that are previously associated with alcohol use -- such as the sight of a beer bottle -- become increasingly important," study corresponding author Sara Pieters, a researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, said in a journal news release. "This might be due to alcohol-induced changes in the brain's reward system and the formation of memory associations."

"Results indicated that in young adolescents, approach tendencies were related to alcohol," Pieters said. "However, we found that if parents set strict rules regarding their offspring's alcohol use, adolescents could inhibit these approach tendencies, particularly males. Conversely, permissive parenting seems to exacerbate the link between approach tendencies and alcohol use for adolescent males."

Adolescents may internalize parental rules in such a way that their approach tendencies can be more successfully inhibited, Pieters suggested.

"In summary, the link between parental rule-setting and adolescent alcohol use is well-established, with more rules being associated with less alcohol use. This study extends previous research on this topic by indicating that parental rules might also be related to the degree to which approach tendencies are linked to changes in alcohol use, with approach tendencies being predictive of increases in alcohol use for adolescents with permissive parents," Pieters said in the news release.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/02/17/parents-strict-rules-could-curb-kids-drinking

Relationships Key to Teens' Mental Health

Interpersonal relationships at home, school and with peers appear to be critical for positive mental health among young Canadian teens, a major study suggests.

"We focused it on mental health for a reason," said John Freeman, director of the Social Program Evaluation Group at Queen's University and a study co-author. "Mental health is a large issue for Canada's young people right now. It's in our conversations ... it's in the news."

Freeman said that as obvious as it may seem, relationships with others are a key indicator as to whether a teen is mentally healthy.

The study, based on responses to questionnaires given to students during class time, examined how relationships with parents, teachers and peers reflect on mental health status.

"And we found consistently, no matter which group we looked at, even with neighbourhoods as well, that relationships mattered," Freeman said Wednesday from Kingston, Ont. "Those students who reported stronger relationships also reported better indices of mental health."

While adults often believe that teens' most critical relationships are with people in their own age group, Freeman said the study found that connections with adults also are important. For instance, adolescents who reported finding it "very difficult" or "difficult" to converse with their mother or father are far more likely to have high levels of emotional problems than those who find it "easy" or "very easy" to talk to their moms or dads. "And it's for both boys and girls, it's very consistent," Freeman explained.

When mental health issues do occur, the study found a gender difference in how they are expressed: girls report higher levels of emotional problems, while boys tend to experience more behavioural problems, such as skipping classes, stealing or getting into fights.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/relationships-at-home-school-with-peers-key-to-teens-mental-health-study-139365628.html