[Hopey]

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It has been shown that girls who don't have close relationships with their fathers tend to be more promiscuous, among other things.

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My father is a very cold, authoritarian type of parent. He was too over-protective and restrictive, while not building a relationship with his children so that we would respect his authority. As soon as his children became older, we all rebelled, and his only strategy was to try to come down harder on us. Eventually this stopped working altogether, as we soon discovered that it wasn't worth trying to live up to his high standards in order to retain a few privileges here and there (that could be taken away for the smallest of infractions). He showed no respect for us, so we showed no respect for him.

I have two sisters. One became pregnant at 15 and now has a six year old son. The other became pregnant twice, but lost one of the babies and gave up the other for adoption. They both barely graduated from high school. One now works for minimum wage in a book store, the other finally became a hairdresser after working at McDonalds for years.

I'm convinced that had my father acted more like a parent rather than a drill sergeant, things would have turned out differently for my sisters.

Get to know your kids, and be reasonable in how you deal with them. Give them some credit for being able to make decisions and respect them. Otherwise they'll eventually turn on you and your ability to have a positive impact on their lives will be gone.