Many parents of teenagers worry about the influence their children’s friends can have. In fact we carried out some research which found that most parents felt they were not the biggest influence on their teenagers, believing that their peers held that top slot.

Parents worry about what their children learn from their friends and the effects of peer pressure.

“Our son’s out of control, he’s been suspended from school twice, and is in a really bad crowd,” one distraught parent told us.

Parents are concerned that the teenage years can start long before children actually hit 13 and when children reach ten they can seem to grow up very fast, shutting out their parents and wanting to spend more time with their friends.

Then, by the time their children become teenagers, they no longer wanted to talk to them about major issues such as sex, relationships and drugs – believing instead that their teen mates and the media are more influential role models.

The good news is that actually research shows many young people say they want to hear about such things as sex, relationships, and drugs from their parents, rather than getting a distorted view from bits of information they pick up here and there from friends and the media.

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