The `Time with Your Teens Campaign' was part of several new initiatives thatthe couple announced last week at the first White House conference entirelydevoted to the topic. The initiatives are aimed at helping parents raisehealthy teenagers.

The main aim of the conference, `Raising Responsible and ResourcefulYouth,' is to provide parents with strategies -- at federal, state and personallevels -- to help their teens navigate a safe passage to adulthood.

"If we can't deal with these big social issues now when we're prosperous, ifwe can't strengthen the bonds of our community, when will we ever do it?"Clinton asked, saying "it's good economics to balance work and family".

He promised to sign an executive order to bar discrimination against parentsin the workplace as part of the government's effort to help provide parentswith more time to spend with their teenaged children. "Believe it or not,there are still some employers who are reluctant to hire or promoteemployees who have children," Clinton said. "The goal of this order simplysays `no glass ceiling for parents'."

He urged Congress to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act and to includelow-income parents in the federal Children's Health Insurance Programme(CHIP) in which all 50 states now participate. "While today's teens arehealthier and more prosperous, significant opportunity gaps persist betweenwhite and minority teens, especially in areas of smoking, violence andpregnancy," Clinton remarked. "If you ask teens and you listen to teens, youcan hear it in their voices directly and indirectly that growing up feelstougher than it ever has before," said Hillary Clinton.

At the day-long meeting, participants discussed the risks and challengesfacing both teens and parents. The president also released a report by hisCouncil of Economic Advisers on the condition of American teenagers. Hecited figures showing high school graduation and college enrollment rates atall-time highs and declines in youth violence, homicide, suicide, teenpregnancy and, recently, drug use. Major challenges include still excessiverates of teen smoking, drug use and pregnancy. "And despite a marked declinein teen homicide over the past few years, far too many communities are stillscarred by gun violence," he said.

The report highlighted the importance of parents spending time with andlistening to their children. "Teenagers who had dinner with their parentsfive nights a week are far more likely to avoid smoking, drinking, violence,suicide and drugs. This held true for single-parent as well as two-parentfamilies, across all income and racial groups," Clinton said. Robert Blum,an expert on adolescent health at the University of Minnesota, said mythsthat were important to debunk were that families do not matter in teenagedevelopment; that spending time with teenagers was sufficient in itself toimprove relationships; and that youth violence, early sex and alcohol abusecan be cured with more two-parent families. He said it was important to showemotional "connectedness" when spending time with teenagers.

When his attention was drawn to conservatives who believe the conference wasa grand example of a "nanny state", White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said,"I'd say that there are a lot of parents around this country who believethat the government has an appropriate, if limited, role in providing toolsfor helping them succeed at home, in the workplace, and there are, I'm sure,a number of conservatives who just don't get that concept and there'sprobably very little we can do to convince them."

-- IANS