Teens: they are doing better but I still worry about them

Went to Instapundit and saw this post where Reynolds links to an article he wrote over at TCS where there is a discussion on how teens are doing. Stats are showing good trends: reduction in teen crime, teen drug use and teen pregnancy and (gasp!) higher regard for family and their parents. Here are some excerpts:

The question is, why are teens doing better? I think there are two answers. First, people noticed problems, and tried a lot of different approaches. Private organizations, church groups, schools, and -- especially -- parents started taking a greater role in educating teenagers and encouraging better behavior. As with teen pregnancy, no single policy solved the problem, but multiple approaches tended to make it better until something seen as insoluble just a few years ago began to look, well, solved.
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The other reason for the improvement is simple learning. Parents -- who in the 1960s and 1970s thought they could pursue self-centered lifestyles without harming their kids -- learned that parenting isn't to be taken for granted. Likewise, teenagers gradually noticed things that were easy to miss when the culture of drugs and adolescent rebellion was new. However they look at age 17, the "cool" rebels tend to do worse later in life, and the geeks tend to do better. Just as smelly, desperate crackheads were the best anti-drug advertisement ever presented in the inner cities (far more persuasive than frying-egg commercials on television), so did unemployed loser guys and unwed welfare moms provide visible good reasons to stay in school, make good grades, and be careful about pregnancy.

In his post Reynolds linked to his fellow writer at TCS, Glassman who writes:

Extra! Extra! The big news of the past decade in America has been largely overlooked, and you'll find it shocking. Young people have become aggressively normal.

Violence, drug use and teen sex have declined. Kids are becoming more conservative politically and socially. They want to get married and have large families. And, get this, they adore their parents.

The Mood of American Youth Survey found that more than 80 percent of teenagers report no family problems -- up from about 40 percent a quarter-century ago. In another poll, two-thirds of daughters said they would "give Mom an 'A.'

"In the history of polling, we've never seen tweens and teens get along with their parents this well," says William Strauss, referring to kids born since 1982. Strauss is author, with Neil Howe, of "Millenials Rising: The Next Great Generation."

I'm heartened by all this good news. Since these studies were done in the 90s, I hope the trend continues into the 00s!

I am a volunteer with the junior high youth group at my church and so I'm looking at the generation after the one described in these essays.

When I'm with them, I do have a sense of hope for them. I have to say, these kids do have some advantages: they have one or two parents who are taking them to church and most are doing well in school.

As any reader of this blog knows, I believe in the virtue of organized religion, in my case Christianity. It provides a way at looking at life, it provides ethics, there is hope and there is a community. Organized religion, of course, is imperfect and critiques of religion will always say that. But what is the alternative? Are kids better off without it? Are we better off without it?

When done right, religion is a positive force in the lives of people and society.

But back to the teens I hang out with. I am hopeful for them that they will make good choices in life. Yet, it is still scary because they are exposed to a lot of stuff I wasn't when I was their age. It is easy to worry about them and to some extent we should. But what can we do but try our best to share with them and model the values that will help them be happy and succeed in life? But what can we do but love and accept them for all the ups and downs that are inevitable during the teen years?