Millions of loving mothers and fathers must have been more than a little bemused by a new study that found most teenagers heed the advice and example of their parents. That’s a reassuring conclusion, of course, but it hardly qualifies as big news.
Good parents have always understood the crucial role they play in shaping adolescent behavior. That’s why so many parents work so hard to sustain healthy, productive relationships with their teenage kids–despite the arguments and tantrums, the hysterics and sulking that can tempt even the most devoted moms and dads to throw up their hands in despair.
Michael Resnick, lead author of the study, said the findings shatter “a widespread myth in America: Once kids have made it out of childhood into adolescence, that parents just don’t matter anymore.”
Poppycock!
This distorted view of the American family is fostered by all those movies and TV shows in which teenagers seem to inhabit a world without grownups–or in which parents, when they do appear, are invariably foolish, incompetent and passe, sad creatures to be scorned, gulled or ignored by their incredibly sophisticated offspring.
In real-life families, parents know only too well how confused and vulnerable teenagers can be, how easily they are hurt or led astray. That’s why mothers and fathers all over America set wise limits and verbalize confident expectations for their adolescents, then put out the extra effort it requires to make sure the kids don’t go over the line.
Parents like these don’t need an expensive research project to convince them they can be the most effective bulwark between their youngsters and risky behavior like taking drugs, driving wildly and having early sex. That’s just common sense.
So is another of the study’s “findings,” that good schools exert a protective influence on their students. Is anyone surprised that kids attending schools where they feel welcome, valued and treated fairly are less likely to flirt with danger or get into serious trouble?
In fact, the study’s greatest value may lie in making Americans even more skeptical of the new priestly class of “experts” who spend far too much time and money validating the obvious. The subliminal message here is that ordinary people can’t trust their instincts and good intentions until some researcher endows them with a scientific imprimatur.
That’s also poppycock. Fortunately, most Americans know it–instinctively.
