The painfully honest accounts these seven teens gave of experimenting with drugs or engaging in premarital sex, or of hours upon hours watching television or surfing the Internet, are the stories of millions of American teen-agers. Violent juvenile crime triples between the hours of 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Children without adult supervision are at significantly greater risk of truancy from school, stress, receiving poor grades, risk-taking behavior and substance abuse. It is different to grow up today than it was 30 or even 15 years ago. Fewer adults are around. Both parents often are out of the house, working.
Single parents are far more common.
A recent federal study found that parents spend 22 fewer hours per week with their children than 30 years ago. These are not the old days. This is not a call to burst unwanted and unbidden into the lives of teen-agers, to completely invade their privacy, to watch them every second of every day. Teens must learn to handle independence, to make more of their own choices, to grow up. They often make it tough on any adult who tries to tread too far into their lives.