KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Drivers’ licenses, first dates, graduations – with four grown children, Terry Dunn has witnessed more teenage rites of passage than he can count.

But every one of them was important.

A study to be released this week indicates that the attention given by parents like Dunn – a Kansas City construction executive – to their children’s milestone events could help fend off adolescent depression, drug experimentation and other dangerous behaviors.

The research by Students Against Destructive Decisions shows nearly half of high school teens say their parents are inattentive to events they consider to be key transitions.

Teens whose parents pay the least attention to such occasions are far more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors than young people whose parents pay the most attention, according to the study.

“Young people very much want some sort of initiation into adulthood,” said Stephen Wallace, chairman of Boston-based SADD. “We don’t do a very good job of recognizing rites of passage.”

The “Teens Today” study included 1,968 people – 984 sets of parents and teenage children – and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

It found 21 percent of teens who said their parents gave little attention to significant events reported being depressed, compared with 11 percent of teens who were given a high level of attention. Teens who reported low parental attention also were more than twice as likely to experience stress and boredom, according to the study, and teens who reported high parental attention were far more likely to say they felt happy most of the time.

Syracuse University professor Keith Alford, an expert on rites of passage, said when parents don’t pay special attention to important markers, teens sometimes “move into pseudo rites of passage” to try to show what they’ve achieved. Alford said that could take the form of drug use and criminal activity.

The SADD research showed teens were about twice as likely to use alcohol if they didn’t feel parents gave adequate attention to their transitions. Marijuana use was reported among 16 percent of teens with parents deemed inattentive versus 3 percent for highly attentive parents; illegal prescription drug use was noted among 28 percent of teens receiving little attention compared with 5 percent of those getting a lot of attention.

Wallace said the events considered milestones vary from teen to teen and the appropriate way of marking them depends on one’s family and culture. He said recognizing the importance of an event is often more appropriate than, say, a party to celebrate getting a license.

“What’s missing is a greater understanding of what that driver’s license signifies for that young person,” Wallace said.