Taking adolescents' agency in socialization seriously: The role of appraisals and cognitive-behavioral responses in autonomy-relevant parenting

Developmental trajectories of adolescent internalizing symptoms and parental responses to distress

Parents' responses to their children's negative emotions are a central aspect of emotion socialization that have well-established associations with the development of psychopathology. Yet research is lacking on potential bidirectional associations between parental responses and youth symptoms that may unfold over time. Further, additional research is needed on sociocultural factors that may be related to the trajectories of these constructs. In this study, we examined associations between trajectories of parental responses to negative emotions and adolescent internalizing symptoms and the potential role of youth sex and racial identity. Adolescents and caregivers (N = 256) completed six assessments that spanned adolescent ages 13-18 years. Multivariate growth models revealed that adolescents with higher internalizing symptoms at baseline experienced increasingly non-supportive parental responses over time (punitive and distress responses). By contrast, parental responses did not predict initial levels of or changes in internalizing symptoms. Parents of Black youth reported higher minimization and emotion-focused responses and lower distress responses compared to parents of White youth. We found minimal evidence for sex differences in parental responses. Internalizing symptoms in early adolescence had enduring effects on parental responses to distress, suggesting that adolescents may play an active role in shaping their emotion socialization developmental context.

Experiences with a co-creation process to adapt a healthy sleep intervention with adolescents: A Health CASCADE process evaluation

OBJECTIVES

Co-adaptation is a collaborative process to adapt existing interventions to new contexts and offers a promising way to scale (co-created) public health interventions. However, there is limited understanding of how co-adaptation processes are experienced. This study examined whether a robust co-creation process can be maintained when adapting a previously co-created intervention to promote adolescents' healthy sleep. Adolescents' experiences during this co-adaptation process were explored, using five key dimensions of co-creation (1) multistakeholder collaborative action, 2) co-learning towards innovation, 3) contextual knowledge production, 4) generating meaning, 5) open, trustful, and inclusive dialogue) as the guiding framework.

STUDY DESIGN

Qualitative observational study.

METHODS

Qualitative data were collected from a co-adaptation process with an action group of adolescents (n = 8) and researchers (n = 2). Over eleven sessions (50 min) following Intervention Mapping, a needs assessment was conducted, and the original intervention's goals and materials were adapted. Data sources included session transcripts, facilitator reflections, adolescent evaluations (n = 5), and focus group transcripts (n = 3), elaborating on adolescents' experiences during sessions, and were analysed using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA).

RESULTS

All five dimensions of co-creation were reflected in adolescents' experiences of co-adapting the healthy sleep intervention. They enjoyed collaborating, committed to the project, reported ongoing possibilities for learning, and produced contextual knowledge from their lived experiences. The process felt meaningful, with a respectful atmosphere. However, challenges like the exclusion of students outside the group and time constraints were also encountered.

CONCLUSIONS

The presence of the five dimensions of co-creation in this study demonstrates that robust co-creation research can be maintained also when co-adapting a previously co-created intervention to a new context with a new group of stakeholders.

The role of youth extracurricular activities and political intentions in later political participation and civic engagement

INTRODUCTION

Current literature recognizes that various socialization agents often shape political behavior. This study employs frameworks of political socialization and political agency to explore how extracurricular activities and political intentions established at age 16 influence aspects of political participation and civic engagement at age 20.

METHODS

A 4-year longitudinal study was conducted using a community-based sample of 933 adolescents from a medium-sized Swedish city with a population of approximately 135,000. Data were collected in 2010 and 2014, allowing for an analysis of the impact of extracurricular activities and political intentions developed during adolescence on later political and civic behaviors. The analytical sample comprised 933 individuals (50.8% females; mean age = 16.62, SD = 0.71).

RESULTS

The analysis revealed that participation in extracurricular activities at age 16 is a significant predictor of offline political participation at age 20. However, no significant associations were found between these activities and other forms of participation, such as illegal behaviors or broader civic engagement. Political intentions at age 16 also significantly predicted offline political participation at age 20.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings highlight the pivotal roles of both socialization agents and individual factors related to youth political agency in shaping political trajectories during adolescence. Understanding the effects of extracurricular activities and political intentions on political participation and civic engagement can aid policymakers and educators in developing strategies to foster active citizenship among young people.

Dyadic Resistance in Parent-Adolescent Interactions During the Transition to High School

INTRODUCTION

Although prior research has examined adolescents' resistance to parental control, the dyadic level of analysis has been overlooked. This study attended to how a Canadian sample of parents and adolescents engaged in resisting one another by observing moment-to-moment actions as they discussed the upcoming transition to high school.

METHODS

A secondary analysis of data collected from 2010 to 2012 using the Action-Project Method was conducted. The sample of 27 parent-adolescent dyads (23 mothers; 4 fathers); 13 boys, 14 girls (Mean youth age = 13.3) was recruited from two urban centers. Videorecorded self-directed conversations were immediately followed by open-ended video recall interviews. A novel way of analyzing data at the dyadic level of analysis was developed based on critical reflexive thematic analysis guided by social constructionist theory.

RESULTS

Resistance was observed at least once in 23 of the 27 conversations (total = 97, range = 0-9, Mean = 3.63, SD = 2.69). Four distinct themes were developed: Reminding of and then defending the "constant battle" lines, Cautious avoidance, the Nudging match, and No point anymore and minimal responses. Dyads varied in frequency and number of themes in their conversations with 78.56% engaging in more than one theme. Most differences came to a trickling of resistance wherein members did not agree but continued to interact without extending the resistance further.

CONCLUSIONS

A dyad-centric approach to analysis was useful for observing how parents and adolescents engaged in resistance together. Our findings suggest that resistance can be seen as a dyadic concept that reflects a personalized relationship history that has implications for parent and youth identity development.

Parenting and adolescent anxiety within families: a biweekly longitudinal study

BACKGROUND

Anxiety symptoms among adolescents have been increasing globally. The present study aimed to better understand the role of parenting, which is believed to act as both a risk and protective factor for anxiety while also being impacted by adolescent anxiety. Specifically, this preregistered study examined the bidirectional associations between parental autonomy support, intrusiveness, and symptoms of generalized anxiety in adolescents.

METHODS

We used meso-longitudinal data of Dutch adolescents (N = 256, Mage = 14.4, age range = 12-17, 71.5% female, tmean = 17.7) and their parents (N = 176, Mage = 46.8, 82% female, tmean = 22). They reported biweekly on parental intrusiveness and autonomy support and on adolescent generalized anxiety symptoms. Dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM) was used to examine the associations at the between- and within-family levels.

RESULTS

The between-family level associations indicated that adolescents from families with lower levels of parental autonomy support and higher levels of parental intrusiveness exhibited higher levels of generalized anxiety symptoms. Within families, during weeks when parents were less autonomy supportive or more intrusive, adolescents also experienced more generalized anxiety symptoms. Regarding the bidirectional time-lagged effects, adolescent-driven, but not parent-driven, effects emerged. Specifically, when adolescents experienced more generalized anxiety symptoms than usual, their parents were less autonomy supportive and more intrusive 2 weeks later.

CONCLUSIONS

Although further research is needed, these findings underscore the negative impact of adolescents' mental health issues on parenting. To prevent the further escalation of family problems, it seems vital to promote positive and adaptive parent-child interactions when adolescents face mental health issues.

Emotion-related Processes Between Parents and Adolescents: Evidence for Bidirectional Effects over Time

Parent emotion socialization has long been studied in relation to children's socioemotional adjustment. Little attention has been paid to how parents' socialization responses are shaped by youth characteristics over time, such as emotional lability. The present study explored the mutual influence between parent emotion socialization and adolescent emotional lability. Participants were 87 adolescents (M = 14.23  years old, SD = .50; 50 girls) and their parents, who completed questionnaires at three time points from 8th grade through 10th grade. Hierarchical linear modeling demonstrated mutual influences between parent emotion socialization and adolescent emotional lability, with relations moderated by adolescent gender. Increases in parents' reward of negative emotion predicted decreased emotional lability in girls. Parents' increased magnification of negative emotions corresponded to decreased emotional lability in boys. Boys' increases in emotional lability predicted decreased parental magnification of negative emotions over time. Increases in parents' magnification of negative emotions predicted increased emotional lability in girls. Girls' increases in emotional lability corresponded to increased parental magnification over time. There were no longitudinal effects of adolescent emotional lability on parents' reward, override, and punishment of negative emotions. Future directions and clinical applications are discussed.

Parents' and classmates' influences on adolescents' ethnic prejudice: A longitudinal multi-informant study

The family and classroom are important contexts that can contribute to the socialization of ethnic prejudice. However, less is known about their unique, relative, and synergic contributions in influencing youth's affective and cognitive prejudice. The current longitudinal study examined these processes and possible moderators among 688 Italian youth (49.13% girls; Mage = 15.61 years), their parents (nmothers = 603, nfathers = 471; Mage = 49.51 years), and classmates between January/February 2022 and January/February 2023. Cross-lagged panel models highlighted that parents and classmates exert unique and relative influences on different dimensions of adolescents' prejudice. Additionally, different interaction effects also emerged for affective (i.e., adverse compensatory effect) and cognitive (i.e., amplifying effect) prejudice. Thus, adolescents draw from the multiple contexts of development to orient themselves in the social world.

Parent-child relationship, parenting behaviors, and adolescents' depressive symptoms after an earthquake: unraveling within-adolescent associations from between-adolescent differences

This study assessed temporal associations between parent-child relationship, parenting behaviors (i.e., warmth, rejection, and overprotection), and adolescents' depressive symptoms after trauma, using random-intercept cross-lagged panel models to distinguish between- and within-adolescent differences. We surveyed Chinese adolescents 12 (Aug 2018; T1), 21 (May 2019; T2), 27 (Nov 2019; T3) months after the Jiuzhaigou earthquake that occurred in August 2017. Of the 585 adolescents who participated in at least two waves of the study, mean age at T1 was 15.50 years old (SD = 1.58 years) and 57.8% were girls. Controlling adolescents' gender, age, ethnicity, trauma exposure at T1, and parents' marital status, between-adolescent results showed that parent-child relationship and parenting behaviors, parent-child relationship and depressive symptoms were correlated across models of parental warmth, rejection, and overprotection, whereas depressive symptoms were only correlated with parental rejection and overprotection. Within-adolescent results indicated that parent-child relationship and adolescents' depressive symptoms had bidirectional associations via the mediation of parental warmth from T1 to T3. Over the longer term following the earthquake, we found that parental rejection was bidirectionally associated with adolescents' depressive symptoms, whereas parental overprotection was unidirectionally influenced by adolescents' depressive symptoms from T2 to T3. In addition, more depressive symptoms in adolescents were associated with worsening parent-child relationship from T2 to T3. In conclusion, shortly after trauma, interventions should focus on improving parent-child relationship and relieving adolescents' depressive symptoms. Over the longer term after trauma, relieving adolescents' depressive symptoms should be prioritized to avoid its eroding effects on parent-child relationship and parenting behaviors, and to break the "vicious cycle".

Still worried? Parental control and academic competence as antecedents of middle school students' post-transition worries

This study examined whether parental psychological control reported by children before the transition to middle school, in the second semester of the fourth grade, is associated with children's worries after the transition to middle school, in the first semester of the fifth grade. We also evaluated the mediating role of children's post-transition perceived academic competence and the moderating role of physical transition (changing schools) on these relations. 370 Romanian early adolescents participated at both time points, with 30% of them having changed schools. Path analysis showed that the relation between children's perceptions of dependency-oriented psychological control and post-transition worries was mediated by academic competence and moderated by physical transition. Educational and counseling implications are discussed.

Better, for worse, or both? Testing environmental sensitivity models with parenting at the level of individual families

According to environmental sensitivity models, children vary in responsivity to parenting. However, different models propose different patterns, with responsivity to primarily: (1) adverse parenting (adverse sensitive); or (2) supportive parenting (vantage sensitive); or (3) to both (differentially susceptible). This preregistered study tested whether these three responsivity patterns coexist. We used intensive longitudinal data of Dutch adolescents (N = 256, Mage = 14.8, 72% female) who bi-weekly reported on adverse and supportive parenting and their psychological functioning (tmean = 17.7, tmax = 26). Dynamic Structural Equation Models (DSEM) indeed revealed differential parenting effects. As hypothesized, we found that all three responsivity patterns coexisted in our sample: 5% were adverse sensitive, 3% vantage sensitive, and 26% differentially susceptible. No adolescent appeared unsusceptible, however. Instead, we labeled 28% as unperceptive, because they did not perceive any changes in parenting and scored lower on trait environmental sensitivity than others. Furthermore, unexpected patterns emerged, with 37% responding contrary to parenting theories (e.g., decreased psychological functioning after more parental support). Sensitivity analyses with concurrent effects and parent-reported parenting were performed. Overall, findings indicate that theorized responsivity-to-parenting patterns might coexist in the population, and that there are other, previously undetected patterns that go beyond environmental sensitivity models.

Are All Negotiations Equally Favorable? The Role of Adolescents' Negotiation Style, Social Domain, and Mothers' Authoritarian Beliefs and Family History

Although negotiation is generally considered an adaptive means for adolescents to express disagreement in the parent-child relationship, previous research on the correlates of adolescents' negotiation has reported rather mixed results. This may be because parents do not always positively appraise and respond to adolescents' negotiation. The key aim of the present study was to better understand variability in mothers' appraisals and responses to adolescents' negotiation attempts. This was done by examining whether their appraisals and responses vary as a function of adolescents' negotiation style, social domain, and mothers' personal characteristics (i.e., authoritarian beliefs and their own history of being parented). A total of 476 mothers of 9th and 10th grade adolescents in Belgium (Mage mothers = 44.93 years old, SD = 4.07; Mage adolescents = 14.88, SD = 0.75, 51.7% boys) participated in a vignette-based experimental study. Mothers completed questionnaires assessing authoritarian beliefs and their own history of being parented, and read a vignette-based scenario depicting an adolescent's negotiation attempt. Using a between-person 2 × 2 design, adolescents' negotiation style (autonomy-supportive versus controlling) and social domain (personal versus multifaceted) were experimentally manipulated. Mothers were more likely to positively appraise and respond in more constructive ways if adolescents adopted an autonomy-supportive instead of a controlling negotiation style, and when the situation involved a personal rather than a multifaceted issue. Mothers with high authoritarian beliefs and those with a history of being parented in a psychologically controlling way, had a more negative attitude towards adolescents' negotiation. Overall, the results suggest that the success of adolescents' negotiation depends on how, about what, and with whom they negotiate.

Prosocial and externalizing behaviors in children raised by different-and same-gender parent families: new directions in parenting research

Introduction

Limited research focused on the association between parenting practices and children's prosocial and externalizing behaviors comparing same- and different-gender parent families. The present study considered 76 Italian families (73% same-gender and 27% different-gender parent families) with 8-year-old (SD = 2.17; 49% assigned female at birth) children born through assisted reproductive techniques, to explore parenting practices and children's prosocial and externalizing behaviors.

Method

We ran a Multiple-group-by-couple Structural Equation Model in which we estimated the predictive role of parenting on children's behaviors, controlling for age, gender, and family socioeconomic status using the Maximum Likelihood estimation.

Results

Results showed that both same- and different-gender parent families reported high levels of parental warmth and very low levels of hostility and rejection; regarding children's behaviors, both same- and different-gender parent families reported high levels of prosociality and low levels of externalizing behaviors. In addition, same-gender parents reported significantly higher levels of children's prosociality and parental warmth than different-gender parents. Regarding associations between parenting practices and behaviors, we found a positive association between positive parenting practices and increasing children's prosocial behaviors and decreasing children's externalizing behaviors, in both same- and different-gender families, controlling for family background characteristics.

Conclusion

The present study encourages future research to investigate how specific parenting practices can influence behavioral adjustment in children, focusing on same-gender parent families.

A moment of autonomy support brightens adolescents' mood: Autonomy support, psychological control and adolescent affect in everyday life

This experience sampling study examined whether autonomy-supportive and psychologically controlling interactions with parents are intertwined with adolescents' momentary affect. For 7 days (in 2020), 143 adolescents (Mage  = 15.82; SDage  = 1.75; 64% girls; 95% European, 1% African, 3% unknown) reported 5 or 6 times a day how they felt and how interactions with parents were experienced. Preregistered dynamic structural equation models on 1439 (including 532 adjacent) parent-adolescent interactions revealed significant within-family associations: Adolescents experienced more positive affect during and following autonomy-supportive interactions, and vice versa. Adolescents felt more negative affect during and 3 h before psychologically controlling interactions. Between-family associations showed significant linkages between parenting and affect. These findings show that a moment of autonomy support can alter adolescents' everyday well-being.

The direction of effects between parenting and adolescent affective well-being in everyday life is family specific

Numerous theories and empirical studies have suggested that parents and their adolescent children reciprocally influence each other. As most studies have focused on group-level patterns, however, it remained unclear whether this was true for every family. To investigate potential heterogeneity in directionality, we applied a novel idiographic approach to examine the effects between parenting and adolescent well-being in each family separately. For 100 days, 159 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 13.31, 62% female) reported on affective well-being and four parenting dimensions. The family-specific effects of pre-registered ( https://osf.io/7n2jx/ ) dynamic structural equation models indeed revealed that a reciprocal day-to-day association between parenting and adolescent affective well-being was present only in some families, with the proportion of families displaying a reciprocal association varying across the four parenting dimensions (11-55%). In other families, either parenting predicted the adolescent's affective well-being (8-43%) or vice versa (10-27%), or no day-to-day associations were found (16-60%). Adolescents with higher trait levels of environmental sensitivity and neuroticism were more strongly affected by parenting. Thus, findings suggest that the ways in which parents and adolescents influence each other in everyday life are unique, stressing the need to move towards an idiographic parenting science.

Motivational and self-regulatory processes associated with weight-related parenting behaviors

Background

Parents play an influential role on their child's eating and physical activity. How maternal personality and individual differences, such as motivation and self-regulation, are associated with their weight-related parenting has yet to be studied. The current study examined relationships of mothers' motivational and self-regulatory characteristics with weight-related parenting practices.

Methods

Mothers (N = 149, MAge = 42.78 years, 49% Hispanic/Latino) of school-aged children (ages 10-14 years, 55.7% female) completed questionnaires assessing behavioral inhibition system/behavioral activation system (BIS/BAS), self-control, and weight-related parenting practices (i.e., role modeling, food restriction, rule enforcement, limiting, discipline, pressure to eat). Structural equation modeling examined associations of BIS, BAS, and self-control with parenting practices.

Results

Among mothers, higher avoidance motivation was associated with difficulty with rule enforcement. Higher approach motivation was associated with less limiting of unhealthy food and sedentary behavior. Higher self-control predicted more role modeling and less difficulty with rule enforcement.

Conclusion

Findings support associations of maternal motivational and self-regulatory processes with weight-related parenting behaviors. Results may inform tailored strategies based on individual differences for family-based interventions for parenting.

Annual Research Review: Cross-cultural similarities and differences in parenting

This article reviews contemporary research on cross-cultural similarities and differences in parenting. The article begins by providing a definition of culture and how both parenting and culture can change over historical time. The article then presents some classic theoretical frameworks for understanding culture and parenting before considering why parenting may be similar across cultures and why parenting may be different across cultures. The article next turns to a review of cross-cultural similarities and differences in several aspects of parenting, including physical caregiving, cognitive stimulation, warmth and acceptance, control and monitoring, and discipline. Cultural normativeness and beliefs on the legitimacy of parental authority are then considered as potential moderators that contribute to cross-cultural similarities and differences in relations between parenting and child outcomes. The article then considers implications for parenting interventions and laws and policies related to parenting. Finally, the article suggests directions for future research.

How Do Adolescents Manage Information in the Relationship with Their Parents? A Latent Class Analysis of Disclosure, Keeping Secrets, and Lying

The use of disclosure and concealment strategies by adolescents in the relationship with their parents may have important implications for their adjustment. Few studies of adolescents' information management have taken a person-centered approach, yet it is a useful way to understand variations in how they regulate information shared with their parents. This study explored adolescents' information management constellations with their mothers and fathers, and how these patterns differ in terms of perceived need-supportive parenting, autonomous reasons for disclosure, and problematic alcohol use. Three hundred thirty-two Swiss adolescents (45% female; M_age = 15.01 years) reported information management strategies used with each parent (disclosure, keeping secrets, lying), perceptions of maternal and paternal need-supportive parenting (involvement, autonomy support, structure), autonomous reasons for disclosure, and problematic alcohol use. Latent class analyses revealed three classes: Reserved (37%), Communicators (36%), and Deceptive (27%). Comparisons across classes showed that adolescents in the Communicators class reported the highest levels of parental involvement and autonomy support, as well as autonomous reasons for disclosure. Adolescents in the Deceptive class reported the lowest levels of parental involvement and autonomy support, as well as autonomous reasons for disclosure. Associations between classes and problematic alcohol use were also found, such that the likelihood of problem drinking was greater for adolescents in the Deceptive class. These findings underscore the importance of continued information sharing with both parents, and underline how a need-supportive parenting context may encourage adolescents to talk voluntarily.