Fathers' Concern Rises When Teens Start ...(games and going to the movies Coley said...),Health

"The time the parents spend with their children engaging in everyday activities can provide very important opportunities for meaningful relationships and communication between parents and children," she said. This helps parents to "create shared values and ideas and keep tabs on what their children are doing and what they're up to."

Still, the research doesn't prove that more family togetherness directly leads to less risky sexual behavior.

While previous research has suggested that parents of sexually active teens become "less engaged, less effective parents," the new findings don't show that, at least in regard to fathers, Coley said.

Freya L. Sonenstein, director of the Center for Adolescent Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said the study was well-done and provides new information about the role of fathers.

In the bigger picture, "the results demonstrate again that parents and families matter for adolescents, and that maintaining or increasing family activities may potentially lower the likelihood of teens engaging in sexual risk behaviors," she said.

But, she said, the findings only apply to families with two parents in the household because the researchers didn't look at one-parent households.

More information

Get more on parenting teens from parenting.org.

SOURCES: Rebekah Levine Coley, Ph.D., associate professor, applied developmental and educational psychology, Boston College; Freya L. Sonenstein, Ph.D., professor and director, Center for Adolescent Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore; May/June 2009 Child Development