Parents, Take Note

"In recent years, adolescents have had fewer opportunities for times of interaction and communication with their parents and other adults. Many families have experienced divorce; and in those families where Mom and Dad still live together, members get busier all the time thanks to schedules full of meetings, activities, clubs and sports. The other extreme is also occurring in a growing number of families, where members may all be at home in the evenings, but everyone retreats to the "aloneness" of their own rooms to interact "solo" with the TV, computer, or any number of media outlets that fill their personal spaces.

All of these factors keep families from eating together on a regular basis, and these realities have certainly contributed to the fact that when teenagers need advice, they're more likely to turn first to a friend (55 percent), followed by Mom (44 percent), a boyfriend or girlfriend (23 percent), and then Dad (20 percent). When push comes to shove, American dads and moms are devoting less time to bringing up their sons and daughters, thereby allowing someone or something else to raise their kids for them." - Walt Mueller