children are located at all times - is parental awareness of children s friends. Overall, about 43 percent of parents of children ages 6-11 reported meeting all their children s friends, compared with 30 percent of parents of adolescents ages 12-17. Another 42 percent of parents of 6 - to 11-year-olds reported meeting most of their children s friends, whereas 54 percent of parents of 12 - to 17-year-olds reported meeting most of their children s friends. The data suggest that parents of adolescents are more likely to know most rather than all of their children s friends [2, pp. 77-78]., We find that most parents reported close bonds with their children, communicated with their children about important topics, and were acquainted with most of their children s friends. These findings were apparent even among parents of adolescent children (ages 12-17), who are often presumed to feel distant from their children. Our analyses show that although some declines are seen in these areas as children get older, high parental involvement and positive parent-child interactions endure throughout childhood into the teenage years for most adolescents.
.2 Problems of upbringing American children
Parenting is not like any other 9 to 5 job. It is never ending and there is never enough time to do everything. No matter how old the child is, a newborn or a toddler, it is never too late to put child first and enjoy being a mum or dad. Many American parents think that they alone know what is best for the children and therefore expect too much from them. They force their children into tuition classes, punish or deprive of some things. These actions lead to some problems which arose at the beginning of the 20 th century in the USA.
It was already mentioned that there is a problem with drugs and alcohol among American youth. There is currently little solid information regarding how many children have experience with alcohol, either from retrospective recall by adolescents or from surveys of children themselves. Retrospective reports of the age at first drink are not very reliable for this life stage. Reported age of onset generally increases the older the adolescents questioned. For example, in the most recent national data from the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the percentage saying they drank alcohol before age 13 decreased from 33.9% for 9th grade students to 19.3% for 12th grade students. That these are not in fact cohort effects, but rather evidence of «forward telescoping,» is shown by the fact that although the percentages decline over time, a similar pattern can be seen in each of the surveys [7, pp. 14-15]. Than one-third of US adults (35.7%) are obese. Obesity increases the risk of a number of health conditions including hypertension, adverse lipid concentrations, and type 2 diabetes. The prevalence of obesity in the United States increased during the last decades of the 20th century. More recently there appears to have been a slowing of the rate of increase or even a leveling off. Given the health risks of obesity and its high prevalence, it is important to continue to track the prevalence of obesity among US adults and children. By state, obesity prevalence ranged from 21.0% in Colorado to 34.0% in Mississippi in 2010. No state had a prevalence of obe...
