Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

The Importance of Family Dinners

The latest research from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) once again confirms the importance of regular family dinner times in reducing teen at-risk behaviors, and improving relationships, communication and academics. Teens who have a family dinner 5 to 7 times per week see the greatest benefits in all areas.

Interestingly, according to the study, family dinners only last 35 minutes on average, which strikes me as not a huge investment of time (okay, I know there's dinner preparation and cleanup time too) for some terrific benefits!

Read the study results clicking on the source link below.

Source: CASA
http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/380-Importance%20of%20Family%20Dinners%20V.pdf

Cautious Parents Banning Sleepovers

Forget the sleepover rituals of junk food, "truth or dare" and late-night gab sessions that have ushered tweens into teens for decades. A new generation of parents are sticking to strict no-sleepover rules.

Today, they call them "sleep unders," "half-overs," "late nights" and "breakfast bashes." Come in your jammies, bring junk food, play all the games you want, but at a certain point these children will be tucked in under their own roofs where their parents know the rules about R-rated movies, Internet use and adult supervision.

"In the old days it used to be that you would build up to a sleepover and you knew everything about that family" says Stacy DeBroff, a Boston mother of two and author of four parenting books including "The Mom Book!" "But now a more vigilant kind of hyper-concerned parent says unknown dangers may lurk, I don't know every variable ... and so I'm going to hover and basically swoop in and take you out."

While plenty of families believe slumber parties are harmless good fun, several news stories about molestation at sleepovers — including a Vermont father who was charged in June with drugging a 13-year-old friend of his daughter with a smoothie and then fondling her — have given parents who worry about slumber parties concrete reasons to avoid them.

Source: Hartford Courant
http://www.courant.com/features/hc-sleepovers-no-more.artsep09,0,573003.story

Parental Physical Discipline Linked to Behavior Problems in Teens

Two new studies explore how discipline changes during childhood and adolescence, and what family factors affect those changes. They conclude that when parents use physical discipline through childhood, their children experience more behavior problems in adolescence.

They find that parents typically adjust the way they discipline their children in response to their children's growing cognitive abilities, using less physical discipline (spanking, slapping, hitting with an object) over time. As children grow older, physical discipline becomes less developmentally appropriate. However, when parents' use of physical discipline continues through childhood, by the time their children are teens, they're more likely to have behavior problems. Teens of parents who stop using physical discipline when their children are young are less likely to have these behavior problems.

The studies were conducted by researchers at Duke University, Oklahoma State University, the University of Pittsburgh, Auburn University, and Indiana University. They appear in the September/October 2009 issue of Child Development.

Source: EurekAlert!
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/sfri-ppd090809.php

Parents Set Poor Example for Teen Drivers

Parents in the United States are setting a poor example behind the wheel for their teenaged children by talking and texting on cell phones and speeding.

Nearly 60 percent of 500 parents with teenage children questioned in an online survey admitted that they chatted on their cells while driving. Forty-two percent said they were guilty of speeding and 17 percent sent a text or email.

Another 40 percent listened to loud music while driving.

"Teens get safe driving examples and advice from many sources -- television ads, driving instructors, friends and family members, but no one more than Mom or Dad," Dave Melton, a driving safety expert with the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, said in a statement.

"And if they grow up watching their Mom or Dad speed, talk on their cell phone, text and email, or pay more attention to what's on the radio than their driving, they are going to think it's okay to do the same thing."

Fathers were the worst culprits for setting a bad example behind the wheel in the poll commissioned by insurance group Liberty Mutual, with 75 percent admitting to at least two dangerous driving behaviors, compared to 63 percent of mothers.

Men were also less likely than women to discuss safe driving with their children.

Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58A3Y120090911

College Kids’ Parents Grapple With Letting Go

Although it’s exciting and fulfilling, sending a child to college has rarely been easy, family psychology experts say. The move marks the end of the active stage of child-rearing and a shift to more passive kind of parenting, said Dr. Karen Soren, director of adolescent health services at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.

For a generation of so-called “helicopter” parents — mothers and fathers who were urged to be extensively involved in their children’s academic and social lives — the shift can be particularly hard, said Marjorie Savage, director of a University of Minnesota parent program and author of a book on the college transition.

Modern-day parents typically struggle to wean themselves from intense, daily engagement with their college-age children, even as the children struggle to establish themselves as independent young adults, Savage said.

“We tell parents to think about the difference between letting them go and letting them grow,” she said.

That may be easier said than done, especially this year, when new college students are starting school in the midst of a historic recession, which has added financial worry to the emotional toll of the transition.

More than 53 percent of freshmen at four-year colleges said they and their families had some concern about paying for school, and another 11 percent said they had major concerns, according to a December poll by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Yet, finances take a back seat to emotions when it comes time for the actual separation — and then the weeks and months that follow.

“It can be very hard,” said Joyce Holl, executive director of the National Orientation Directors Association, an agency that provides education and resources for college officials. “It’s like that first day of kindergarten, but my child’s not coming home after school,” she said.

Fortunately for parents and students, there’s a science to the freshman year departure process. From convocation ceremonies to parent barbecues, every activity is designed to ease parents away from the school — even as students are eased in.

Source: MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32634569/ns/us_news-the_elkhart_project/#sp-tx/page-2

Kids Today on Tighter Leash, But Wild at Home

Parents today give their children more freedom at home but keep them on a tighter leash in public, a new study finds. This is the reverse of what was considered good parenting in the early half of the last century, the researcher showed.

The conclusion comes from an offbeat, qualitative study, which involved a review of 300 advice columns from Parents magazine, published between 1929 and 2006.

Examples cited in the study reveal a disciplined approach to child-rearing a couple generations ago that's all but gone today.

"Today's parents face demands that require near-constant surveillance of their children," said the study's author, Markella Rutherford of Wellesley College in Massachusetts. "Allowing children more autonomy to express themselves and their disagreements at home may well be a response to the loss of more substantial forms of children's autonomy to move through and participate in their communities on their own."

The in-home freedom could explain a stereotypical complaint by grandparents that their grandchildren are "out of control," Rutherford said.

The loss of public freedom could reflect social changes, including the current design of towns and suburbs, which focus mostly on the convenience of auto traffic, not kids. Highly-publicized child abductions also scare parents into keeping a close eye on kids, Rutherford notes.

In the early 20th century, advice columns tended to promote obedience, with children listening to parents regarding diet, appearance and other personal matters.

And chores of yesteryear would be considered abuse by some kids today: Through the 1950s, the household work doled out to children described in Parents included cleaning, shopping, meal preparation, furniture rearranging, furnace maintenance, automobile maintenance and nursing of sick family members.

While tightening the leashes at home, parents often gave their kids free rein outside, allowing them to play sports, ride bikes, buses and subways all over town, and even hitch rides.

By the second half of the century through today, advice in Parents has increasingly recommended allowing children to express themselves freely, even if that means defying and arguing with parents.

In the 1960s, '70s and '80s, descriptions of children's household chores all but disappear and instead the focus is placed on schoolwork, Rutherford found.

The results are detailed online in the journal Qualitative Sociology.

Source: Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090805/sc_livescience/kidstodayontighterleashbutwildathome

Fathers Respond To Teens' Risky Sexual Behavior

A new longitudinal study finds that when adolescents engage in risky sexual activity, fathers respond by increasing their efforts to supervise and monitor their children.

Researchers at Boston College, the University of Pittsburgh, and Harvard University conducted the study, which appears in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.

The study suggests that fathers react differently than mothers to their children's sexual behavior. When teens engaged in risky sexual behavior, instead of parents becoming less involved, as previously seen, fathers boosted their involvement, learning more about their children's friends and activities. This finding contradicts previous research, which has found that parents react with hostility and are less engaged following such discoveries.

This study also identified involvement in family activities as a protective force. Specifically, it found that teens who took part in routine family activities like eating meals together or joining in fun projects were less likely to engage in risky sexual activity, and teens who didn't engage in risky sexual behavior were more likely to participate in family activities.

Source: EurekAlert
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/sfri-frt050809.php

Parents and Teachers Have More Influence Than Peers

A new Australian study provides another reminder for parents that their influence is primary in the lives of kids. It is true, particularly for early and middle-adolescent kids, that influence of peers does increase. But, this shouldn't convince parents that they matter less. Striving to maintain open communication and keeping relationships healthy are keys to keeping parental influence strong.

Parents and teachers who fear their good work instilling academic discipline and motivation is ruined by a child's peer group can take heart: new research shows they have more influence on young people than they think.

A University of Sydney study has found that getting on well with parents and teachers has a strong positive influence on adolescents' academic outcomes - and a bigger influence than getting on with peers. These findings provide new hope to parents and teachers who too often assume that they cannot compete with the power of the peer group.

"Parents and teachers who might feel powerless during adolescence have a bigger influence on academic motivation than they think - sometimes up to three times the impact of peers," said Andrew Martin, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education and Social Work and the study's lead researcher.

"If you think you have no impact, stick with it because you do, and not just in the early years - at all stages of secondary school teachers and parents have a significant impact." He also cautioned that the flipside of the research is that academic motivation suffers when a child does not get on well with teachers or parents. "The study clearly points to the importance of positive connections and quality relationships with teachers and parents in adolescents' lives."

Source: The Medical News
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2009/05/14/Parents-and-teachers-have-more-influence-than-peers.aspx

8.3M Kids Live With A Parent Who Abuses Drugs, Alcohol

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 12% of kids under the age of 18, live with at least one parent who is dependent on or abused alcohol or illicit drugs. Is there any doubt that kids exposed to such living conditions are negatively affected?

In Brief:

Combined data from 2002 to 2007 indicate that over 8.3 million children under 18 years of age (11.9 percent) lived with at least one parent who was dependent on or abused alcohol or an illicit drug during the past year.

Of these, almost 7.3 million (10.3 percent) lived with a parent who was dependent on or abused alcohol, and about 2.1 million (3.0 percent) lived with a parent who was dependent on or abused illicit drugs.

About 5.4 million children under 18 years of age lived with a father who met the criteria for past year substance dependence or abuse, and 3.4 million lived with a mother who met the criteria.

Source: The NSDUH Report (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration)
http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k9/SAparents/SAparents.pdf

New Product Alerts for Parents

I'm not specifically endorsing these products, but want to make parents aware that a couple of new products have come onto the market, one for tracking what your kids are doing online and the other which assists parents in teaching their kids how to drive.

Symantec's OnlineFamily.Norton
For parents that want to track their children's online usage, identify questionable sites that have been visited and block sites from access, OnlineFamily.Norton (free software, and free service through January 1, 2010) streamlines data for parents and highlights sites parents might want to block. It provides search data as well, enabling parents to determine if kids searched for inappropriate sites or stumbled onto them.

Source: ABC News
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=7434768&page=1

Driver Ed in a Box
The goal of Driver Ed in a Box is to equip teens to become safe, collision-free drivers. The materials include audio CDs, videos on DVD, a textbook, a student workbook, and training mirrors for use in the in-vehicle training. The parent materials are thorough, well organized and are designed to help build the teen's confidence in driving. Parents provide first-hand experience to their teen and in the process build the teen's confidence as a new driver.

Source: PRWeb
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/04/prweb2360614.htm