[roger-roger]

Canadian teenagers are drinking less, smoking less, and having less sex: an exclusive report in Maclean's

TORONTO, April 2 /CNW/ - Parents are used to worrying about their teens,
but an exclusive report in latest issue of Maclean's reveals that today's
teenagers may be behaving better than their parents.
According to the latest results from Project Teen Canada, an ongoing
survey of more than 4,500 teenagers that dates back to 1984, the timeless
hallmarks of teenage rebellion -booze, cigarettes, drugs and sex- are
officially out of favour.
Reginald Bibby, the University of Lethbridge sociologist who oversees the
project, says many of the fears we have about our kids are founded on a faulty
assumption, namely, that opportunity would necessarily lead them to indulge.
But while drugs are as available as ever, the proportion reporting
regular or occasional drug use has fallen by 16 per cent in the last eight
years. And while social advocates warned through the 1990s that the
liberalization of liquor laws would lead to more teenage alcohol abuse,
today's youth are less interested in drinking than their counterparts in the
previous decade. But nothing defied conventional wisdom as much as the
responses to queries on sex and relationships. Today's teenagers actually
report having slightly less sex than youths were 10 or 15 years ago, while
placing a much greater emphasis on old-time romantic conventions like loyalty
and love.

<<
Teenagers (age 15 to 19) 2000 2008
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Per cent who drink alcohol 78% 71%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Per cent who smoke 37% 22%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Per cent who use marijuana or hashish 37% 31%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Per cent who never have sex 51% 56%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLUS:

- Teen girls in charge: As a group, teens are having slightly less sex,
but teen girls are starting to act like boys.
- Losing faith: Teens who identify themselves as Christians are
dwindling, while Islam and atheism are on the rise.
- Polite, honest. . . bigoted? Immigrant teens learn that tolerance
goes both ways.

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/April2009/02/c6761.html



I have to run to the gym, but I wanted to see what eveyone else thought of this....

[Bacardi4206]

I call bullshit IMO, we got many articles of 12 year old girls prosituting themselves willingly. Which is becoming a more common thing of girls and boys having sex at a more younger age.

You got girls dressing like sluts as regular wear which appears to be a regular thing with younger girls as well. I mean this day and time is like a pedofiles wet dream. Young girls dressing slutty and having sex willingly to middle aged men.

At my high-school every hall-way was a drug dealer, everybody I knew smoked pot. At grade school, like grade 6-8 everybody played drinking games and at grade 8 developed into sex games sort of.

I mean if this shit is true, I have not see any evidence of it in real-life or in my experience.

[stokes]

I have been out of high school for 15 years, so I have no idea what kids are actually doing but I have noticed a lot of the same observations as Bacardi when it comes to the way people dress and articles in the news. However, the only drastic decrease was in the number of kids who smoke, drinking drugs and sex never really dropped that much.

[stokes]

It is about perception Lily, regardless of the truth.

[raydan]

lily lily:

Just an FYI - how a girl dresses has very little to do with whether she's having sex or not.

Of course not, it's more about how she undresses.

[PluggyRug]

I have a 5" swivel vice for sale. Don't think it's lost though.

[coaster_dot]

Heres the thing though they only surveyed 4,500 teens. That is not enough to be making a statistic about teenagers. I mean, what if most of the teens who do smoke, drink, have sex, ect are just not the teens who took the survey?

[RUEZ]

raydan raydan:

lily lily:

Just an FYI - how a girl dresses has very little to do with whether she's having sex or not.

Of course not, it's more about how she undresses.

Creepy.

[Brenda]

You read it inthe newspapers more because now it is printed, as it wasn't years ago. I think the education we give our kids really works. I think kids make choices now, instead of being dragged into doing things. Isn't that what we want our kids to do?

[coaster_dot]

I think that kids now days are becoming smarter then there parents. So I think if they see there parents smoke, drink, ect it makes there kids not want to do it. I know that's how it was for me.

[bootlegga]

Kids aren't losing their vices in this neck of the woods.

At my P/T job on the weekends, I work with plenty of high school aged kids, and most of them smoke, drink, do drugs and go to clubs (with some really nice fake IDs). Based on the pics they put on Facebook and their cellphones, I don't think too many are virgins either...

[raydan]

RUEZ RUEZ:

raydan raydan:

lily lily:

Just an FYI - how a girl dresses has very little to do with whether she's having sex or not.

Of course not, it's more about how she undresses.

Creepy.

Sorry, forgot a bit about what the subject was.
I my age, I think about girls 40 years and older getting undressed.

[roger-roger]

Here is another MacCleans article on the subject, I also agree with both. We do seem to be inundated with stories of teen prostitutes, many of them paint the picture that your child is just a sex addict in waiting. I feel that it was just the flavour of the month and the papers decided to focus on it while in reality these children are not the norm.

[DrCaleb]

Does the spelling mistake in the title drive anyone else nuts? And who else finds it ironic?

[RUEZ]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Does the spelling mistake in the title drive anyone else nuts? And who else finds it ironic?

Yes.