Most parents do know where their kids are

US Census Bureau reports parents are more involved in their children's lives than a decade ago.

from the November 7, 2007 edition

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David Eigen, a psychologist in Atlanta, has the capability to track his two teenage daughters with GPS monitoring. "If I wish to track them I can go to a website and track them," he says in a telephone interview. "I've never done it, but they know I have it."

Many families would regard that as a step too extreme. Dr. Eigen's rationale? "Parents need to know where their children are," he says. "Part of being a parent is to guide and watch our kids. The bottom line is, parenting is job one." Borrowing a line from Ronald Reagan, he adds, "Trust, but verify."

Still, just how involved should parents be in shadowing their children's every step? Deciding when and how much to loosen the parental leash differs from family to family, child to child. Parental distrust can breed ill will, but the consequences of a laissez-faire attitude by parents can also be perilous.

Almost 1 in 5 American teens say they live with "hands off" adults who fail to set consistent rules and monitor their behavior, according to a survey by Columbia University's Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. That puts these teenagers at a four-times greater risk for smoking, drinking, and illegal drug use than their peers who have "hands on" parents.

Another study from Britain suggests that some parents need to be slightly more hands-off when it comes to children's performance at school and elsewhere. A report by Mintel, a London market-research firm, finds that fathers in particular exhibit an obsessive concern with children's academic and extracurricular achievement.

When does involvement become over-involvement, and protectiveness turn to overprotectiveness? Learning how to strike a balance is a parental art form.

Perhaps the most encouraging new family study reports that teenagers' best-kept secret is this: They really do care what parents think. Even if they appear to be turning away from their family in favor of their friends, what their family thinks matters to them – a lot.

That's the finding of a 30-year longitudinal study by Simmons College School of Social Work in Boston. It makes a persuasive case for strong family involvement at every stage – the kind of togetherness that will show the American family in a continuing favorable light when the census takers make their next rounds in 2010.

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