Poll Reports

About one-third of parents give primary schools an “A” for providing support for kids with behavioral, emotional or family problems. Less than one-quarter of parents give secondary schools an “A”.

More than one-half of parents set limits on the time that children can use cell phones. Only one-third of parents block images on their children's cell phones.

For girls, parents’ leading Internet concerns are online sexual predators and loss of privacy. For boys, parents’ leading Internet concerns are viewing pornographic material and loss of privacy. Black parents are generally more concerned than white or Hispanic parents with Internet safety issues for children.

87% of adults support mandatory H1N1 vaccination for health care workers in the event of an H1N1 outbreak. Only 38% of health care workers plan to get the H1N1 vaccine.

Only 40% of parents plan to have their children get the H1N1 flu vaccine—much fewer than those who plan to have children get the seasonal flu vaccine. Hispanic parents are more likely than white or black parents to plan to have their children get the H1N1 flu vaccine.

Only 1 in 3 parents give secondary schools an “A” for providing a safe place for students overall; in contrast, 3 in 5 parents give primary schools an “A”. Only 1 in 4 parents give secondary schools an “A” for prevention of bullying and school violence; just 2 in 5 parents give primary schools an “A”.

1 out of 8 parents give schools a "D" or "F" for healthy food choices. Parents of primary school students give better grades for healthy food choices than parents of secondary school students.

More adults rate obesity as the top health problem for children in 2009 than in prior years. Beyond obesity, Hispanics, blacks, and whites disagree on top child health problems. More than one-quarter of adults now rate stress as a big child health problem.

For 44% of families, the financial situation has gotten worse over the past 6 months. 40% of parents report that their children age 5-17 have stress as a result of worries about their family's money. To make ends meet, 11% of parents who report a worse financial situation have delayed taking their children to the doctor.

1 in 4 children age 4-17 never wear a helmet when riding a bicycle. Nearly 1 in 2 children from the lowest income families never wear a helmet when riding a bicycle. Helmet use in places that have child bicycle helmet laws is more than twice as high as helmet use in areas without such laws. Nearly 9 in 10 adults support helmet laws for children.