Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

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

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

Laptop Shooting Dad Says He'd Do It Again

Tommy Jordan, angry dad from North Carolina, became an overnight Internet folk hero for meting out gunslinging justice to his rebellious 15-year-old, who had recently posted a disrespectful update on her Facebook page.  On Thursday night, he posted the act of discipline on his daughter's Facebook wall, and on YouTube. By Monday morning, a stunning 21.4 million people had watched it -- far more than watch an episode of “American Idol”or even NBC's “Today” show.

While  experts interviewed by msnbc.com were highly critical of the public nature of the discipline, the vast majority of parents expressed enthusiastic approval for Jordan, most pointing out that it's high time "someone stood up to these spoiled kids."  An unscientific poll of 93,000 voters on Today.com found 74 percent agreed with Jordan's brand of discipline.

He was also visited by the police and Child Protective Services during the weekend. "Of course they came. They received enough ‘Oh my god he's going to kill his daughter’ comments that they had to," he wrote. He made light of the visits, however.  The police congratulated him, he said, and one officer added that he planned to use the video in presentations he does for the school system.

Despite the surprising notoriety, Jordan said he'd do it all over again in a statement designed to answer questions posed by reporters. “If I had it to do again... let's see... I'd do it almost the same," he wrote on his Facebook page in a note addressed to Anita Li of the Toronto Star. He wouldn't be smoking in the video, he said, then added, "I'd have worn my Silverbelly Stetson, not my Tilley hat, if I'd known that image was going to follow me the rest of my life and I'd probably have cleaned my boots. That's it."

"To answer 'Why did you reprimand her over a public medium like Facebook' my answer is this: Because that’s how I was raised. If I did something embarrassing to my parents in public (such as a grocery store) I got my tail tore up right there in front of God and everyone, right there in the store. I put the reprisal in exactly the same medium she did, in the exact same manner," Jordan wrote.

Source: MSNBC
http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/13/10397269-laptop-shooting-dad-after-21-million-views-says-hed-do-it-over-again

 

Multitasking Hinders Youth Social Skills

FaceTime, the Apple video-chat application, is not a replacement for real human interaction, especially for children, according to a new study.

Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal recently.

Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.

The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results should apply to boys, too, Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor of communications who worked on the study, said in a phone interview. Boys' emotional development is more difficult to analyze because male social development varies widely and over a longer time period, he said.

"No one had ever looked at this, which really shocked us," Nass said. "Kids have to learn about emotion, and the way they do that, really, is by paying attention to other people. They have to really look them in the eye."

The antidote for this hyper-digital phenomenon is for children to spend plenty of time interacting face-to-face with people, the study found. Tweens in the study who regularly talked in person with friends and family were less likely to display social problems, according to the findings in the publication Developmental Psychology.

Source: CNN
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-25/tech/tech_social-media_multitasking-kids_1_social-skills-study-facetime?_s=PM:TECH

Teens Who Express Differences With Mom Might Resist Peer Pressure

Frustrated parents who are frequently at odds with an argumentative adolescent might take heart from the findings of new research on teens, their moms and their friends.

It seems that not all disagreements are bad. In fact, teens who express their own views in discussions with mom — even if they disagree — are more likely to resist peer pressure to use drugs or alcohol, the study discovered.

"What we find is the right kind of argument is one where a teen and the parent are trying to persuade each other with calm reasoning," explained lead author Joseph Allen, the Hugh P. Kelly Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia.

Essentially, the kids who express their own points of view in the right way are practising an important life skill.

Allen said teens need to learn to stand up for themselves somewhere, and those who learn to do so in the right way with their parents are actually much better suited to do it well with their peers.

The study is published in the journal Child Development.

The researchers videotaped the teens and their parents discussing a disagreement, and then observed and coded the information to understand what was happening.

"And what we found was that what teens learn at home in terms of handling disagreements, they largely take into their interactions with their peers," Allen said in an interview from Charlottesville, Va.

"So if they learn to be calm and confident and persuasive at home, they'll do the same thing with their peers."

On the other hand, if they use bullying, whining and pressure — or just withdraw — when there's a disagreement, they'll do the same thing with their friends.

The study was only done with moms because there were more families with mothers, due to divorces and the rates of single-parent families, but Allen said it's possible the same process applies to interactions with dads.

Source: Brandon Sun
http://www.brandonsun.com/lifestyles/breaking-news/teens-who-express-differences-with-mom-might-also-resist-peer-pressure-study-136047698.html?thx=y

Family Dinners Linked to Less Risky Behavior in Teens

"The Importance of Family Dinners VII" study shows that teens who eat dinner five to seven times a week with their families are less likely to engage in at-risk behaviors than teens who had fewer than three family dinner per week.

Compared to teens who ate with their families five to seven times a week, teenagers who had fewer than three family dinners a week were almost four times more likely to try tobacco, more than twice as likely to use alcohol and 2.5 times more likely to use marijuana, according to new information released by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

"Family meals are the strongest factor that we've come across in any activity that families do," said William Doherty, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota. "It really tops them all as a predictor and contributor of a wide range of positive behavior."

Doherty, who did not take part in the study, said family dinners conveyed a sense of belonging, gave teenagers security and stability, and provided them and their parents an opportunity to communicate.

Source: ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Parenting/family-dinners-linked-risky-behavior-teens/story?id=14583590

 

Teens Who Date More Likely to Become Depressed

In a new study of more than 8,000 American adolescents, researchers have found that dating increases the incidences of depression.

The authors of the study found that:

1. Depression often increases over the course of the mid-adolescent years, but it increases more for those adolescents who become romantically involved (especially for the first time) than for those who do not become romantically involved. This deepening depression occurred even for those who got involved and stayed involved -- so the findings were not simply a matter of feeling badly about a break-up.

2. Depression among the romantically involved increased for both the males and the females, but it increased more for the females.

3. The increase in depression among the romantically involved was also especially great for those adolescents who reported attraction to people of the same sex and for those who reported no romantic attraction toward either sex.

4. Both the males and the females who became romantically involved reported more problems with drinking and delinquency than did their peers who were not romantically involved.

Source: Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bella-depaulo/effects-of-adolescent-relationships_b_947642.html

Absent Fathers Affect Boys' Development, Behaviors

Boys who grow up without a dad around are more likely to reach puberty later, but father their own children earlier, according to a new study.

Researchers from the London School of Economics used data from the UK National Child Development Study to look at the relationship between the presence of fathers and the time their sons' voices broke.

The study found that if the father left during their son’s adolescence their voice broke later, when compared to boys with present fathers.

“It’s particularly surprising to see that a boy’s puberty can be delayed as a result of events that happen in adolescence,” said Paula Shephard, a researcher from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

According to the study, boys with absent fathers were less likely to be married by the age of 23 and more likely to have children by that age.

“These findings suggest that father absence exerts an influence on male reproductive decisions, even after controlling for other indicators of early life adversity,” the authors wrote.

Source: The Conversation
http://theconversation.edu.au/boys-with-absent-fathers-more-likely-to-become-young-dads-3287
 

Close Bond With Mom Helps Keep Teen Boys Safe

A boy's relationship with his mother changes as he grows up and the way it changes can affect his behavior when he's a teen, a new study says.

Researchers followed 265 mother-son pairs from low-income families in Pittsburgh from when the son was 5 years old through adolescence. The researchers assessed the level of conflict and warmth between the mothers and sons and other aspects of their lives, including the son's temperament and behavior, the mother's relationship with her romantic partner, and the quality of the mother's parenting.

Mothers of sons who had a difficult temperament as toddlers said their relationship with their son included a lot of conflict and lower levels of closeness over time. The study also found that mothers who had good relationships with their romantic partner tended to form closer bonds with their sons that endured throughout childhood and adolescence.

Boy who had lots of conflict with their mothers were more likely to engage in delinquent behavior as teens, while boys who had a close relationship with their mothers were more likely to have a good relationship with their best friends when they became teens.

The study appears in the journal Child Development.

"These results suggest that successfully adapting to the transitions of childhood and adolescence may require parents and children to maintain relatively high levels of closeness and minimize conflict in their relationships," lead author Christopher Trentacosta, an assistant professor of psychology at Wayne State University in Detroit, said in a journal news release.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/teen-ya/story/2011-09-03/Close-bond-with-mom-helps-keep-teen-boys-safe/50250408/1

Teen Sex Linked to Higher Divorce Rates

A University of Iowa study has found that women who first engage in sex as young teens are more likely to divorce.

Published in the April issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family, the analysis found that 31 percent of women who had sex for the first time as teens divorced within five years of getting married, and 47 percent divorced within 10 years. The divorce rate for women who delayed sex until adulthood was far lower: 15 percent at five years, and 27 percent at 10 years.

Author Anthony Paik, associate professor of sociology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, examined the responses of 3,793 ever-married women to the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth.

A first sexual experience that was unwanted or not completely wanted was strongly associated with divorce. If the young woman chose to lose her virginity as a teen, the results were more nuanced.

When the first intercourse took place early in adolescence - before the age of 16 - the women were more likely to divorce, even if that first sexual experience was wanted.

Source: LifeSiteNews
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/teen-sex-linked-to-higher-divorce-rates/