CHICAGO (Reuter) A study of thousands of U.S. adolescents found those
who feel emotionally tied to family or school were less likely to take
drugs or engage in other risky behavior, researchers said Tuesday.

``These findings offer the parents of America a blueprint for what works
in protecting their kids from harm,'' said J. Richard Udry of the
University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the study's chief
researcher.

``Contrary to common assumptions, (the study) has found that parents
not just peers are extremely relevant to their children throughout
their adolescence,'' he said.

Parents who want to prevent risky behavior should spend time with and
talk to their children, set high standards for them and send clear
messages to them, he added.

The study, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical
Association, covered 12,118 junior high and high school students. The
information is the first from a study of more than 90,000 adolescents
being studied for a variety of issues in what researchers said is the
largest such project ever conducted in the United States.

The report said young people who feel connected to their parents or
school were less likely to suffer emotional distress, think about
suicide, be violent or smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol or smoke
marijuana.

They also tend to have their first sexual experiences later than young
people with less attachment to family or school, the study said.

Students who had to repeat a grade or appeared older than their
classmates were also found to be predisposed to depression, suicidal
thoughts, violence, substance abuse and an earlier age of sexual
activity, the study said.

``The problem of school failure is all the more critical when one
realizes that more than one in five young people have been held back at
least one year in school,'' said Robert Blum of the University of
Minnesota, one of the study's investigators.

``Academic success is protective against many health risks, and school
failure is strongly associated with nearly all risk behaviors,'' he
added.

The study was paid for by the National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development and 17 other federal agencies. Its findings were
analyzed by researchers at the University of Minnesota and the
University of North Carolina.

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