Chapter 4
Changes in family relationships at adolescence
Family systems theory: perspective on family functioning that emphasizes interconnections
among different family relationships (such as marital, parent-child, sibling)
- According to this theory relationships in families change most dramatically during
times when individual family members or the circumstances are changing because
during these times the family’s equilibrium often is upset
- One period in which this changes is often adolescence >> peak at 13/14 years
Self-fulfilling prophecy: the idea that individuals’ behavior is influenced by others’
expectations for them
What do adolescents and parents usually fight about?
- Conflict between adolescent and parents are conflict about everyday matters
- Less frequent in ethnic minority than in white families
- Topics of agreements are similar across ethnic groups and cultures
- Teenagers and parents define the issues of contention very differently
>> Parents view issues as right or wrong and teenagers as matters of personal choice
Rebels with a cause
- Teenagers only rebel when they view the issue as personal (what clothes to wear)
- They don’t rebel when the parents’ rule is legitimate, and the issue is moral
- Adolescents who are less likely to believe their parents have a right to know how to
spend their time are more likely to not tell the truth about their activities
- Adolescents who think that their parents are overcontrolling are likely to become
oppositional
- How parents get their information about their teenagers matters for the teenagers
- Adolescents understand that some issues are matters of personal choice, rather than
social convention
- Parents are more likely to lie to younger adolescents than older ones about activities
they wish their teens wouldn’t do
The adolescent’s parents at midlife
- Midlife crisis: a psychological crisis over identity believed to occur between the ages
of 35 and 45, the age range of most adolescents’ parents
Overlaps of crises between parents and adolescents
- The developmental concerns of parents and adolescents are complementary
- A second overlap of crises concerns perceptions of time and future
>> Adolescents start thinking systematically about the future
>> Parents feel that possibilities for changing their own lives are limited >> reminded
of their mortality
- For adolescents this phase in the family life cycle is a time of boundless horizons, for
parents it means coming to terms with the choices made when they were younger
- The adolescent’s desire for independence appears to be especially stressful for
parents
,The mental health of parents
- A strained relationship between a midlife parent and his or her adolescent child may
drive the parent to devote relatively more time to work
- Parents’ mental health problems negatively affect the way they interact with their
adolescents
- Parents’ mental health is worse during their teens adolescence than when they leave
the home
Changes in family needs and functions
- The family as a unit also changes
- Family finances are often strained during adolescence
- Increased importance of peer group >> Central setting instead of family
Special concerns of immigrant families
- Some families are more likely to find family obligations important
- Familism: an orientation toward life in which the needs of one’s family take
precedence over the needs of the individual
- Adolescents who value familism are more likely to develop prosocial values, less
likely to get depressed and get into antisocial peer groups
- Parental effectiveness was greater in families where the parents and teenagers
preferred to speak the same language
- Immigrant parents’ ideas sometimes clash with the more individualistic orientation of
the many mainstream American families
- Different expectations between immigrant parents and teenagers >> stress
- Generational dissonance: divergence of views between adolescents and parents that
is common in families of immigrant parents and American-born adolescents
Transformations in family relations
Changes in the balance of power
- During early adolescence, teenagers begin to try to play a more forceful role in the
family >> even though they have little impact then
- Increase in adolescents’ negative feelings about their mothers goes together with an
increase in the extent to which they are more focused on themselves
- By middle adolescence teenagers act and are treated more as adults
- Between ages 16-20, adolescents’ relationships with parents improve
- Frequent communication between parents and teenagers over mobile devices
strengthens the relationship and helps FOMO
- Parents and teenagers live in separate ‘realities’
- Parents describe their own parenting more positively than their teenagers do
The role of puberty
- Puberty distances adolescents from parents >> but not associated with “storm and
stress”
- Diminished closeness is manifested more in increased privacy and less physical
affection
- The frequent bickering can take a toll on parents’ and teenagers’ mental health
, - The first half of adolescence is a more strained and distant time for firstborns than
later-borns
Sex differences in family relationships
- Differences between the family relations of sons and daughters are minimal
- Some evidence that adolescent girls are more affected by the quality of their
relationship with their parents
- Adolescents tend to be closer to their mothers
- Fathers often rely on mothers for information about their adolescent’s activities >>
more distant authority figures >> consulted for objective information, not emotional
support
- Adolescents fight more often with their mothers and perceive their mothers as more
controlling >> but this doesn’t jeopardize the relationship
- Time spent with fathers is more predictive of adolescents’ social competence and
feelings of self-worth
Family relationships and adolescent development
- Socialization is a two way street >> parents affect their adolescents’ behavior and
adolescents affect how their parents behave
- The link between negative parenting and adolescent problem behavior is stronger
among adolescents who are more temperamentally impulsive
Parenting styles and their effects
Diana Baumrind
- Two aspects of the parent’s behavior toward the adolescent are critical
1. Parental responsiveness: the degree to which the parent responds to the child’s
needs in an accepting, supportive manner
2. Parental demandingness: the degree to which the parent expects and insists on
mature, responsible behavior from the
child
>> independent of each other
- Combinations of these two parenting
dimensions
- Authorative parents: both responsive and
demanding (warm, but firm)
- Authoritarian parents: demanding but not
responsive (obedience and conformity)
- Indulgent parents: responsive, but not
demanding (accepting, benign, and more
passive way in matters of discipline
- Indifferent parents: neither demanding nor responsive (little energy in interaction
with child)
The power of authorative parenting
- Young people raised in this household are more psychologically mature
- Better regulation of emotions
Ethnic differences in parenting practices
, - Authorative parenting is less prevalent among black, Asian, or Latinx families than
among White
- Ethnic minority parents are often more demanding than White parents
- Tiger Mother: an approach to parenting that may foster academic achievement, but
that may also increase adolescents’ anxiety and distress
- Strict affectionate: protective, not authoritarian
How authorative parenting works
- It has an appropriate balance between restrictiveness and autonomy
- The adolescent can develop self-control while providing the standards that teenagers
still need
- More independence when getting older >> develops self-assurance and enhances
ability to withstand potentially negative influences
- Authorative parents engage their children in verbal give-and-take >> more likely to
promote intellectual development for the development of maturity
- Authorative parents are less likely to assert their authority by turning adolescents’
personal decisions into moral issues
- Authorative parenting is based on warm parent-child relationship >> adolescents are
more likely to identify with, admire, and form strong attachments to their parents
which makes them more open to their influence
- The child’s own behavior temperament and personality shape parenting practices
Adolescents’ relationships with siblings
- As children mature to early adolescence, sibling conflict increases
- Two common sources of sibling conflict:
1. Invasion of the personal (like wearing a siblings’ sweater)
2. Disagreements over equity and fairness
- Adolescents see aggression towards siblings as more acceptable
- In same-sex dyads, intimacy increases between pre-adolescence and middle
adolescence, and then declines
- In mixed-sex dyads the pattern is opposite
- By late adolescence, brothers and sisters are closer than same-sex siblings
A network of relationships
- The quality of the parent-adolescent relationship influences the quality of relations
among siblings
- Adolescents learn much about social relationships from sibling interactions and bring
this knowledge to other relations >> the reverse is true as well
- Positive sibling relationships contribute to adolescents’ academic competence,
romantic competence, familism, sociability, health, autonomy, and self-worth
- Siblings influence each other’s development
Genetic influences on adolescent development
- Researchers examine genetic influences in 3 main ways:
1. Studying adolescents who are twins
2. Studying adolescents who have been adopted
3. Studying adolescents and their siblings in stepfamilies
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