To James Ecker, Killian Kilroy and Chris Thorne, the issue is pretty simple. They’re guys. Their dads are guys, too. So if the Brewer Middle School seventh-graders have a serious problem, they’re going to talk to their fathers rather than their mothers.

“We have similar interests,” Thorne said. “We like guy stuff, going fishing and stuff like that. Just having father-son time.”

The reverse goes for Erin Suitter and Kelly Clark. They’re girls. So if they have problems, they’re going to go to their mothers for advice.

Suitter and Clark are the norm, according to the results released this weekend in USA Weekend magazine’s “Calling All Teens” national survey that asked teen-agers to answer a series of questions about their relationships with their parents.

Ecker, Thorne and Kilroy? Well, they’re not. In fact, the results of the survey show that most of the 84,000 teens who responded to the survey – both boys and girls – don’t go to their fathers to talk about serious issues.

In almost all areas of the survey, teen-agers’ relationships with their parents are strong, open and close.

Families eat meals together at least four nights a week. They express love for each other on a regular basis. They attend religious services together and talk about issues like illegal drug use and premarital sex. These teen-agers know that family is most important to their parents, more so than careers or outside relationships.

More than half of the teen-agers gave their parents an “A” on their parenting job. Some even consider their parents to be – brace yourself – kind of cool.

So why is it still so hard to talk to Dad?

Overwhelmingly, these teen-agers would rather talk to their mothers about serious problems such as pregnancy, an eating disorder or harassment, according to the survey. Nationally, 47 percent of the respondents said they’d confide in their mothers. Twenty-five percent said they feel comfortable talking to both their mom and dad, while 21 percent said they don’t confide in either parent.

But just 7 percent of the national respondents said they would go to their fathers for advice.

The Brewer Middle School students were five of more than 100 students who took the survey through seventh-grade reading teacher Billie Libby’s class.

There are a few issues the boys would take to their mother. Thorne sure loves how his mom brings him soup in bed when he’s sick, so he would probably confide in her if he wasn’t feeling well. Ecker’s mom is a teacher, so if he were having trouble in school he might talk to her.

Suitter said she would ask her dad questions about sports, and Clark said she tells both of her parents if she is having problems with a teacher. Other than those topics, both girls feel more comfortable talking to their moms about the serious issues.

“It’s easier for me to relate to her because she’s a girl and I’m a girl and we have more things in common than me and my dad,” Clark said.

Kilroy, whose parents are divorced, lives with his dad. So it follows that he would confide in his father more than his mom.

“He gives great love advice,” Kilroy revealed. “He is very interested in my love life.”

Although these boys do confide in their fathers, the results of the survey are no surprise to Robert Milardo, a University of Maine professor of family relations and the editor of The Journal of Marriage and Family.

“It’s neither an indictment of parents nor a situation where all is well,” he said.

In fact, Milardo said, more married women are more likely to confide in other women than their husbands, and more men are likely to confide in their wives rather than other men.

Milardo did find the survey question itself a bit skewed. The question cites pregnancy, eating disorders and harassment as examples of serious problems. Milardo said that because females are more likely than males to experience those serious problems, it makes sense that a child would confide in his or her mother.

“If [the survey question was] career-oriented and [the teen-agers] weren’t going to their fathers, it would be more of a concern. [The question is] more relevant to young girls. It’s not surprising that they want to talk to their mothers.”

Examples such as peer pressure to drink alcohol, smoke or do illegal drugs, or school-related issues, would have been more neutral, Milardo added.

Still, the fact that 21 percent of the respondents are not comfortable confiding in either parent indicates there clearly is room for improvement. There are ways to encourage kids to open up – primarily by taking an active role in the child’s life, Milardo said.

The Brewer students agree.

“[My dad is] just easier to talk to and he [volunteers with] my Boy Scout troop, so I hang out a lot more often with him,” Ecker said. “You can get involved in some of their common interests, like if they like sports, you can go watch their games.”

The kids hit upon other solutions.

“By listening, not just always talking, but listening as well,” Suitter said.

“And if you tell [parents] something, [they should not] come right out and yell or something and get all mad at you,” Kilroy said. “Just listen to what they say to you and think it over before you come out screaming or getting mad.”

Libby, who remembers confiding in her mother as a teen, uses the survey to show students the real-life applications of reading.

“They read the questions, they have choices, they think about what they can do,” she said. “I try to make reading real to them. They think reading has to be out of a book only and what we do in class. So to participate in a nationwide survey just becomes a really good real-life experience.”