The following is an excerpt from “What Every 21st-Century Parent Needs To Know,” by Debra W. Haffner. Reprinted by permission from Newmarket Press, newmarketpress.com.

GOOD NEWS FOR PARENTS TODAY

The landscape for 21st century parents is undeniably challenging, but there is a lot of good news for parents today. For instance, relationships between most parents and children have changed for the better. Although we are working more hours than our own parents did, we are actually spending more time with our children than our parents did. Fathers today spend nearly triple the time on child care than their fathers did, and Gen X dads spend an average of one hour more a day with their children than boomer dads. Even though many mothers are working outside of the home, many of us are actually more involved with our children’s lives than our own mothers were.

We also have more tools and knowledge to face challenges than other generations of parents. Our children are healthier than any other generation of children in history. We have more than 40 years of research on parenting showing us that finding the balance between nurturing our children’s growing independence and setting limits and consequences for their behaviors, a style I call “Affirming Parenthood,” is most effective at raising responsible and healthy children and teenagers.

As a result of our improved parenting, our children and teenagers are behaving more responsibly than have recent generations of young people. In fact, on almost every indicator of risk-taking behavior, tweens and teens today behave much more conservatively than their older brothers and sisters. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has conducted an annual survey of risk-taking behaviors among middle school and high school-age youth since 1991. Although it’s true that some youth are engaging in risky behavior that could compromise their future and their health, in comparing the behaviors of teens in 2005 (the latest year for which statistics are available) with teens in 1991 (the first year of the study),

• Lifetime and current alcohol use are down, and binge drinking is down.
• Cigarette and other tobacco use is down.
• Teen pregnancy rates, teen birth rates, teen STD rates, and teen abortion rates are down. So are teen rates of sexual intercourse.
• Teen condom use is at its highest rate ever.
• High school dropout rates are down.
• Rates of teens committing crimes – including homicide, rape, violent crime, and violent deaths – are all down. Fewer teens have even been in a physical fight compared to 15 years ago.

Only marijuana use is up compared to 1991, and it has been decreasing since 1999. So has adolescent use of cocaine, Ecstasy and hallucinogenic drugs.

Overall, today’s children and youth feel good about themselves. In a study of children ages 8 to 18 in 2003 by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 88 percent of young people report that they have lots of friends and 75 percent say that they are happy at school. Only a quarter say that they get in trouble a lot, with fewer than 1 in 10 saying that sounds a lot like them.

We are doing something right. Indeed, a Public Agenda survey found that ¾ of teens trust their parents to be there for them, and the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 86 percent of teens said that they get along well with their parents. Today’s adolescents and young adults value their parents, their teachers and professors, and their older friends. What every 21st-century parent needs to remember is how fortunate we are to be parenting at this time.

For more 21st-Century Parent advice and information, visit 21stCenturyParent.com.

© 2008, Debra W. Haffner | Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

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