Parenting Daily

Stay with me, Parents! I told y’all we’d be broaching the subject of sex more, right? Not because it’s your favorite topic to discuss with your teen, but because I think it’s important to address the fact that teens do have sex. Trying to pretend it doesn’t happen isn’t going to help you or your teen. So, today I have good news about teen sex and drug use, per the lovely folks at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to a study released yesterday by the CDC, teens growing up today are having less sex and using less drugs than teens who grew up in the 1990s! Of course, those of you who had teen children in the 90s are probably not comforted by this news. Sorry!

A “nationally representative sample” of over 14,000 teens was used in this survey. In case that phrase is meaningless to you, it basically means that they tried to match the general demographic trends across the population of the
U.S. to those who they actually surveyed. Surveying every single teen across the nation is, obviously, impractical. Ergo, this is a “sample” of the “population” as a whole. Okay, moving on from our statistics lesson to the actual numbers…

Non-virgin teenagers in 2007 was 48%, down from 54% in 1991. 62% of those having sex are using condoms, a big increase from the 46% that reported using condoms in 1991. Unfortunately, there was no significant change in the percentage of Hispanic teens having sex in 2007, as opposed to 1991.

Marijuana and alcohol use are also down. While 42% of teens had had at least one drink of alcohol a month before the 1991 survey, only 35% had in 2007. And while 27% of students in 1999 used pot, only 20% had in 2007. Likewise, methamphetamine use by teens has fallen 6%, down from 10% in 2001.

Check out the full report  for more information on minority facts and figures, as well as issues regarding weapons and safety belt usage.

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