HERE'S A PRECIOUS MOMENT, KID

By MARGARET CARLSON

On Wednesday, all of Washington woke up to an above-the-fold banner headline in the Post blaring the news LOVE CONQUERS WHAT AILS TEENS. Gee, all this time I thought it was Guess jeans and $140 Air Jordans. What kind of love? Parental, rock-star, tough or backseat? When I found out it was the kind a mother can give, I thought it was news after all. How sweet, how wholesome, and what a relief. There were times when my love for my own particular teenager seemed capable of curing very little, much less whatever ailed her. For one three-month period, she so preferred the company of her best friend's family that I feared they'd claim her as a dependent on their income tax return.

The survey, the first part of a long-running, $25 million study, interviewed 20,000 teenagers. It found that kids who have a strong sense of connection to their parents were less likely to be violent or indulge in drugs, alcohol, tobacco or early sex. And feeling close to teachers is by far the most important school-related predictor of well-being.

The opus, paid for by 18 federal agencies, probably got the attention it did because it offers so much comfort to parents whose little Mary doesn't make a move without calling her pal Molly, while treating Mom like a potted plant. "The power and the importance of parents continue to persist, even into late adolescence," says University of Minnesota professor Michael Resnick, the lead author of the survey. A reassuring finding: although your child may seem to ignore you, she is living off the remnants of the bond built during the years before getting her ears pierced was the most important thing in her life. The study, published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is a little fuzzy when it comes to just what builds that magic bond, saying it's neither time nor activities spent together but simply the intensity of the involvement. "It's more than the physical presence of parents, the number of hours a day they're in the home. It's their emotional availability," says Resnick. Uh-oh. Are we spending $25 million to recycle the old saw about quality time, the one that says to the parent trying to make partner at the law firm, "Don't worry if you spend more time with your clients than with your child. Just bear down like a freight train during those precious moments you're actually there"? And they say our tax dollars are wasted.

Without putting an hour figure on it, the survey singles out mealtimes as important, which can eat up hours if you do it right. I had to give up on breakfast, which was consumed, if at all, in the car out of a can. Dinner was a battle, but I won. Many of Courtney's friends were allowed to graze like hunter-gatherers at mealtime, with full carry-out privileges (Chinese, pizza) and access to expense-account restaurants that had their parents' credit card on file. I was so depressed by the thought of kids' eating out of a carton, like Woody Allen, or high off the hog, like a porky lobbyist, that I insisted that mine eat at home, even when I was heating up Stouffer's.

The survey cites the fact that parents spend 10 to 12 hours less per week at home than moms and dads did in 1960. Perhaps the next phase of the study will look at carpooling as the underrated source of both quality and quantity time that it is. It yields the absolute-best inside information for the parent who wants to keep up with what's going on but can't pry the information out in any other format. In a car you might as well be a cabdriver, unfamiliar with English, for all the kids will notice you. They're irrepressible, so intent on conducting their business they convince themselves you aren't there. Carpooling at night, though the leading cause of teenage sulking, is the very best type. Pick up the kids after movies, parties or ball games, and you're an eyewitness to history. You know who's drinking, who's smoking, who's about to peel off from the group and get pregnant. With the early-warning system of late-night driving, you have the chance to go on high alert when the occasion warrants. Of course, you have to give up some of your own social life and have a thick hide for this. My own teenager wondered loudly, Why couldn't she take a taxi? Why couldn't she get a ride with the older kids? Why couldn't I get lost for a few years?

I didn't get lost, and neither did she. Love does conquer an awful lot. But it's inescapable that love takes time. The kids in the survey might be better off if the government gave their parents $25 million to buy back those lost 12 hours.

--With reporting by Andrea Sachs

With reporting by Andrea Sachs