Few Parents Think Teens Are Having Sex
In the "Where America Stands" series, CBS News and our print partner, USA Today, are looking at a broad spectrum of issues facing this country in the new decade. Today, we hear how the nation's children are faring, from their parents' perspective, based on the results of a new CBS News poll..
They may be growing up in a world vastly different from previous generations, but parents of children between the ages of 9 and 17 have a lot of confidence in their kids.
Most American parents say their children are a healthy weight, have a good understanding of the value of a dollar, help out with chores at home, and shun sex at an early age and drug use.
Only a small number of parents, 22 percent, say they think their teenagers have become sexually active, with 75 percent saying their kids have put off amorous behavior.
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When sexual activity is taken out of the bedroom and put into the far more modern arena of mobile communications, however, parents seem to be slightly less convinced of what their kids are doing. Of the parents questioned, 35 percent say their teens have probably tried "sexting," the act of sending or receiving explicit photographs via text message.
Still, more than six in 10 parents say their teenagers have not done this.
Most parents say their own teenagers have not experimented with drug use - either illegal drugs or using prescription drugs for recreational purposes. About nine in 10 parents of teenagers under 18 do not think those teens have tried either.
A tiny number of parents, just 3 percent, say they think their teens have tried using prescription drugs to get high. The number is slightly higher for experimentation with illegal drugs, with 12 percent of parents saying their teens had likely done so.
American children between 9 and 17 may be the first generation to have no memory of a world before the Internet, but according to their parents they are not spending too much time online. Forty-five percent of parents of children age 9 to 17 say their kids spend "just a little" time online, while another 40 percent say they spend "some" time online, but not too much. Just 7 percent say their children spend "almost all" their time on the Internet.
See Kelly Wallace's blog on how one New Jersey family is coping with the digital revolution
A majority of parents of children between 9 and 17 say they monitor most of their children's online activities, while another third says they check in "from time to time." Very few - just 2 percent - say they usually leave their children to surf the Web without supervision. As children get older, parents generally say they monitor Internet activity less closely.
Very few parents say their children have likely been bullied online by peers. Just 5 percent of parents of children age 9 to 17 say their children have ever been harassed or bullied online.
More results from the poll:
• Three in four parents of children 9 to 17 think their children understand the value of money at least somewhat well, including three in 10 who say very well. About a quarter say their children do not understand the value of money well at all.
• According to their parents, 54 percent of children between 9 and 17 get a regular allowance, though almost half - 46 percent - say they do not. Just one in five says they have a child who works outside the home at least part-time. Parents of teenagers report similar percentages.
• Most parents are still involved in their children's shopping decisions - just 7 percent say their children 9 to 17 shop for things on their own most of the time. Seven in 10 say their children shop on their own either rarely or never, though this drops to less than six in 10 among teens 13 to 17.
• Obesity rates may be growing in America, but parents do not necessarily see this trend in their own children. Few parents of children 9 to 17 think their own children are overweight - just 12 percent think so. The vast majority, 87 percent, do not think their children are overweight.
• Children 9 to 17 are still helping out around the house, at least according to their parents. Sixty-two percent of parents say their kids do chores around the house regularly, while 32 percent say they do chores occasionally. Only 5 percent say their children hardly ever help out.
This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1048 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone December 17-22, 2009. Phone numbers were dialed from random digit dial samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.
192 parents of children between the ages of 9 and 17 were interviewed, including 97 parents of children between the ages of 13 and 17. The margin of error for parents of children between the ages of 9 and 13 is seven percentage points and 10 percentage points for parents of children between the ages of 13 and 17.
This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.