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1992.09.24 :  Lack of Parent/Child Interaction Trend
 
Contact: John Gibbons 202/690-6343
September 24, 1992

       America's children are "being hit with an epidemic of
parent-withdrawal," HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., told
the National Black Child Development Institute at its 22nd annual
conference last weekend in Washington, D.C.
       "For reasons ranging from immaturity, to exhaustion, to
pursuit of self-gratification, parents today spend 40 percent
less time with their children than parents did in 1965,"
Secretary Sullivan said.
       Calling the lack of parent/child interaction "a
troublesome trend for children and teen-agers who need their
parents to help navigate an increasingly permissive moral
environment," Secretary Sullivan said surveys actually show that
children want more attention from their parents.
       "Contrary to popular perceptions of teen-agers thinking
they have all the answers," Secretary Sullivan said, "kids say
that they wish their parents would talk to them more about issues
such as school work, drugs, dating and sex."
       Urging a children-first priority, Secretary Sullivan said
"We need both effective, family-friendly government interventions
and a cultural shift so that children come first in order to help
every child, including every African-American child, realize his
or her full potential."
       Secretary Sullivan said the administration's overall
budget proposals for fiscal year 1993 show funding increases for
programs that invest in children, focus on prevention and empower
parents. The list includes four HHS programs that were discussed
in the weekend speech to the child-interest group: 
       -- $143 million to provide for demonstration projects in
15 communities, part of the Healthy Start initiative designed to
reduce infant mortality rates.
       -- $300 million for immunization activities, an increase
of 148 percent over 1989, to ensure that children are fully
immunized by the time they are two years old.
       -- $40 million, a 90 percent increase, to spur lead
poisoning screening to curb a preventable disease which finds
low-income, minority children in urban areas most at risk.
       -- $600 million for Head Start, a doubling of funding
since 1989, making it possible for an additional 157,000 children
to be served in 1993.

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