Contrary to stereotypes, adolescents and parents usually get along very well, share similar values, and see eye to eye on a range of important issues. When there is a generation gap, it tends to revolve around matters of personal taste rather than fundamental values and attitudes.
One source of conflict between teenagers and parents involves the different ways that they define the same issues. Making sure that an adolescent's bedroom is tidy is often seen by parents as an area over which they have "jurisdiction." Teenagers, however, tend to see their rooms as their own private space, and decisions about neatness as matters of personal choice.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AT ADOLESCENCE
Families move through phases and stages in their development that make up a family life cycle. Adolescence, as a period in the family life cycle, presents a challenge to most families--because of changes in the adolescent, changes in the adolescent's parents, and changes in family functions and needs.
The Adolescent's Parents at Midlife: For many adults, midlife is a time of heightened introspection and personal reevaluation. Because many parents are at this stage in the life cycle when their children are teenagers, the so-called "midlife crisis" of adulthood may coincide with the "identity crisis" of adolescence. In general, parents who have some strong interests outside the family and who have a positive sense of self-esteem cope better with the changes of adolescence than do other parents.
Changes in Family Needs and Functions: One of the most important changes undergone by the family during adolescence is financial. Parents not only face the economic burden of saving for college but they are also burdened with maintaining their adolescents clothing and peer related expenses.
Transformations in Family Relations: Adolescence is a time of renegotiation in family relationships, with adolescents gaining more power and becoming more assertive. These transformations in family relations are sparked by the biological, cognitive, and social maturation of the adolescent.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
When considering the impact of various patterns of family relationships on the development of the adolescent, it is important to remember that the socialization of the adolescent is a product of how the parents influence the adolescent and how the adolescent influences the parents. For example, the adolescent's temperament often changes the impact of the parent's behavior.
Parenting Styles and Their Effects: Two aspects of parents behavior towards adolescents are critical: parental responsiveness and parental demandingness. Social scientists distinguish among four general types of parenting styles: authoritative parenting, which is warm, firm, and fair; authoritarian parenting, which is more punitive, restrictive, and controlling; indulgent parenting, which is more accepting, benign, and passive; and indifferent parenting, which is neglectful or disengaged.
Authoritative parenting, which has been shown to benefit adolescents from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, is composed of three main factors; warmth, structure, and autonomy support. Generally speaking, adolescents who grow up in households in which parents are authoritative--warm yet firm--are happier, more self-reliant, and more socially capable than their peers who are raised in authoritarian, indulgent, or indifferent homes. Authoritative parenting encourages intellectual growth, the development of autonomy, and the formation of healthy identifications between young people and their parents.
Ethnic Differences in Parenting Practices: Ethnic differences do exist in parenting practices. In general, authoritative parenting is less prevalent among African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic-Americans than white families. Although the findings are still open to question, some research suggests that authoritarian parenting is more common among minority families than among white families.
Autonomy and Attachment in the Adolescent's Family: Studies of parent-adolescent interaction show that the healthiest families are those that permit the adolescent to develop a sense of autonomy while staying emotionally attached to the family at the same time. Such adolescent development is associated with particular patterns of interaction: enabling interactions (e.g., problem-solving, empathy) and constraining interactions (e.g., distracting, judgmental).
Adolescents' Relationships with Siblings: In general, adolescents' relations with siblings are different from those with parents or with friends. Over the course of adolescence, adolescents' relationships with siblings--especially with younger siblings--become more equal but more distant and less emotionally intense.
Behavioral Genetics and Adolescent Development: Research suggests that adolescents are quite dissimilar from their brothers and sisters, despite the strong genetic and environmental influences they share. Behavior genetics distinguishes between two types of environmental influences: sharedenvironmental influences (factors in the environment that siblings have in common) and nonshared environmental influences (factors in the environment that are not similar and make siblings different from one another).
Adolescents and Adoption: While early research on the psychological development of adolescents who were adopted revealed higher rates of psychological problems, more recent, large-scale research has questioned this conclusion. Age at which adoption occurred is correlated with problem behavior, but other differences between adopted and non-adopted adolescents are quite small.
THE ADOLESCENT'S FAMILY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY
The changing nature of work, the women's movement, new patterns of housing, and changing values and priorities have all altered American family life tremendously during the past twenty-five years. Four of the most important changes that have occurred among American families with adolescents are the increase in the rate of divorce, the increase in the prevalence of single-parent households, the increased participation of mothers in the labor force, and an increase in the proportion of families living in poverty.
Demographers (social scientists who study changes in the composition of the population) note that half of all children who will become teenagers during the 1990's will experience their parents' divorce, and more than half of these youngsters will experience living in a stepfamily. The vast majority of all children born in the early 1980's will spend at least part of their childhood or adolescence in a single-parent household. African-American adolescents are far more likely than other youngsters to experience parental divorce but less likely to experience their parents' remarriage.
The employment of mothers with school-aged children has increased steadily since 1950. Over three-quarters of all married women and 80% of all single mothers with school-aged children are employed outside the home.
There has also been a substantial increase in the proportion of families living below the poverty line. Approximately one-fifth of all adolescents will grow up in poverty with minority adolescents more likely to be effected. One explanation for this increase in poverty is the rising number of single-parent households.
Although the two-parent, one-wage-earner family may have been common prior to 1960, today few adolescents (less than 15%) live in this arrangement.
ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT AND THE CHANGING FAMILY
Adolescents and Divorce: While adolescents from divorced homes tend to have more developmental difficulties than adolescents from non-divorced homes, the explanation for this difference is not necessarily linked to the divorce itself. The quality of the relationships between the adolescents and their parents, the disruption caused by the process of going through the divorce, exposure to marital conflict, disorganized parenting, increased stress in the household, and genetic differences between the teenagers themselves all lead to adverse consequences for adolescent development. Research on divorce indicates that the period of greatest difficulty is the time immediately following the event. Young boys in the custody of their mothers are hardest hit by divorce. Contact with one's extended family has been found to be an important buffer for African-American children growing up in single-parent homes. It is important to remember, however, that differences between adolescents from divorced versus non divorced homes tend to be small in size; moreover, there is considerable variability within the population of adolescents whose parents have divorced.
The Specific Impact of Marital Conflict: Overt, hostile, physically violent, or frightening marital conflict has been linked to a wide range of adolescent problems, including aggression, delinquency, and other types of acting-out behavior. Self-blame, anxiety and depression also may result from exposure to marital conflict.
The Longer-Term Effects of Divorce: Although most youngsters ultimately adapt to parental divorce, new research indicates that certain adjustment or behavior problems may appear or reappear in adolescence (referred to as "sleeper effects"). These include academic problems, increased drug and alcohol use, and difficulties in romantic relationships.
Custody, Contact, and Conflict Following Divorce: Healthy adjustment following the parents' divorce is influenced more by the nature of the relationship between the divorced parents than by with whom the adolescent lives. While contact with the non-custodial parent (usually the father) declines rapidly after the parent moves out, research is inconclusive regarding the consequences of this decrease in contact. Ultimately, it is the level of conflict between the divorced parents that determines the consequences for the adolescent of the decreased contact with the non-custodial parent.
Remarriage: Because adolescents' mental health suffers somewhat each time their family situation changes, young people growing up in stepfamilies may be at even greater risk than their peers in single-parent, divorced homes. In general, girls show more difficulty in adjusting to remarriage than boys do, and older children have more difficulty than younger children. One factor that seems to make a difference in adolescents' adjustment to remarriage is the quality of the relationship they maintain with the non-custodial biological parent.
Parental Employment and Adolescent Adjustment: The effects of maternal employment depend on the sex of the adolescent and the attitude of the mother, and other family members, toward her work. Maternal employment has positive effects on daughters but mixed effects on sons, especially where school performance is concerned. Children whose mothers are happy with their employment are more likely to benefit than are children whose mothers don't wish to work or dislike their jobs. Overall, however, the daily experiences of adolescents whose mothers are employed are not significantly different from those of adolescents whose mothers are not employed.
Economic Stress and Poverty: Adolescents whose families have suffered severe economic losses, or who live in chronic poverty, are at heightened risk of psychological difficulties and problem behavior. Research on economic strain and its impact on the adolescent indicates that the main effects of financial stress are transmitted to the adolescent through the negative impact they have on parents' mental health and marital relations. Parents under financial strain are harsher, more inconsistent, and less involved as parents, which, in turn, lead to problems for their children. Two specific sets of family management strategies employed by parents in poor neighborhoods seem to alleviate these problems: promotive strategies and restrictive strategies.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FAMILY IN ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Regardless of household composition, parenting style, and income, the most important protective factor for adolescents is a feeling of connectedness with parents and family.
Adolescents who feel that their parents are "there" for them are healthier, happier, and more competent than their peers who lack family support.
