Daily HealthBeat Tip

Mom and Dad�s rules of the road

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Hearing is not the same as paying attention, as parents and teens know. So when it's important, like rules for safe driving, what happens when the teen hears but doesn't pay attention?

Kenneth Beck of the University of Maryland examined that. He asked teens and parents about things like whether it was OK to drive after dark. He asked teens if they did things like tailgate and speed.

"The more that the teens and the parents agreed upon when, where, and why the teen was allowed to drive, the less likely the teen was to report engaging in these kinds of risky activities." (13 seconds)

Beck advises parents to make sure kids hear the rules.

The study in the American Journal of Health Behavior was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: October 16, 2006

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