Families

1. Families • Adolescents’ Families • Historically • Today • Impact • Conflict • Parenting Style • Attachment • Siblings • Divorce

2. Historical ChangePatterns over Two Centuries Three changes over the past two centuries have influenced family life • Lower birth rate • In 1800, women in the U.S. had an average of 8 children • Today the average number of children is 2 • Longer life expectancy • Up until 1900, the average life expectancy was about 45 • Now the average human life expectancy is over 70 • Movement from rural to urban residence • As recently at 1830, 70% of children lived in farm families • By 1930, this figure had dropped to 30% • Today it is less than 2%

3. Historical Change – The Last 50 years The most dramatic changes have been in the following three areas: • Divorce Rate • The current rate is so high that nearly half of the current generation of young people are projected to experience their parents’ divorce by the time they reach their late teens • Single Parent Households • Mothers represent 90% of custodial parents (parents who lives in the same household as the children) • Besides divorce there has been a rise in the proportion of children born outside of marriage • Dual-Earner Families • Employment among women with school-aged children has increased from about ¼ to over ¾

4. Changes in Families Fewer than 15% of today’s teens live with both biological parents in a household where the father is the only breadwinner.

5. Changes (cont’d) • High rates of divorce and high rates of childbirth outside of marriage • Majority of adolescents born during 1990’s will spend some of childhood/adolescence in a single-parent household • Half of teens whose parents divorce will spend time in a stepfamily • Therefore: many factors that could impact adolescents’ development

6. The family in our time has mainly emotional or affective functions To provide love, nurturance and affection above all else. The Changing Functions of the Family

7. Extended Family Relationships • Traditional Cultures • Young men generally remain in their family home after marriage and young women move into their new husband’s home • This practice has been remarkably resistant to the influence of globalization • This pattern is typical in India, China and most traditional cultures in Asia and Africa • In these cultures children typically grow up in a house that includes parents, siblings as well as grandparents and often uncles, aunts and cousins • Similar patterns of closeness to grandparents have been found among adolescents in American minority cultures

8. Extended Family Relationships • American Majority Culture • Adolescents’ contact with extended family members is relatively infrequent • Extended family members often live many miles away • American adolescents have significantly less contact with their extended family members as compared with adolescents in European countries because European extended family are more likely to live in close proximity • An exception to this pattern occurs among adolescents in divorced families who tend to have increased contact with grandparents during adolescence (especially with their maternal grandfather)

9. Family Systems Approach • To understand family functioning one must understand how each relationship within the family influences the family as a whole • The family system is composed of a variety of subsystems • EXAMPLE: The subsystems in a family consisting of • two parents and an adolescent would be: • Mother and adolescent • Father and adolescent • Mother and father

10. Family Systems Approach • Based on 2 key ideas: • Each subsystem influences every other subsystem in the family • A change in any family member or family subsystem results in a period of disequilibrium until the family system adjusts to the change

11. Adolescents’ Families • Beginning of adolescence a time of family transformation • Renegotiation of power and responsibility • Often coincides with parents’ own “midlife crisis” • Increased concern about bodies and physical attractiveness • Beginning to feel that the possibilities for change are limited; occupational plateau

12. Changes in Family Relationships: Family Needs • Changes in the family as a whole unit • Changes in economic circumstances • Large anticipated expenditures (e.g., college) • Parents belong to “Sandwich generation” • Changes in family’s relationship to other social institutions • Increasing importance of peers • Changes in family functions • Family’s role during adolescence less clear than infancy or childhood

13. Transformations in Family Relationships • Changes in the balance of power • Shift from an asymmetrical relationship toward a more equal relationship with parents • The role of puberty • Biological/cognitive maturation at puberty throws the family system out of balance • Violations of Expectations • Cognitive changes in views of family expectations

14. Changes in Family Relationships: The Parents • Parents of adolescents • Increased concern about bodies, physical attractiveness, and sexual appeal • Midlife crisis (most are in 40s) • Beginning to feel that the possibilities for change are limited • Occupational plateau • Mental health of parents

15. Sex Differences in Family Relationships • Minimal differences between sons and daughters in family relations • Similar degrees of closeness, types of rules, patterns of activities • Sex of the parent may be a more important influence than sex of the teen • Teens tend to be closer to their mothers, have more intense relationships • Fathers rely on mothers for information about adolescent, perceived as distant authority figures

16. Families (cont’d) • Overall: get along well, feel close to parents (particularly mother), respect parents’ judgments • Tend to disagree over mundane issues • Disagreements stem from different perspectives • Part of problem: method of conflict resolution • Similar beliefs about fundamental attitudes and beliefs • Differ in opinions of personal taste (dress, leisure)

17. Families (cont’d) • Progressively less time spent together • 5th graders: 25-30% of waking hours • 12th graders: 12-15% of waking hours

18. Parent-Adolescent Conflict • G. Stanley Hall (1904) • Anna Freud (1946) • Both researchers made it sound as though it was universal and inevitable that ALL adolescents rebel against their parents and that ALL parents and adolescents experience intense conflict for many years How accurate are these early theories?

19. Is There A Generation Gap? • Popular advice for parents of teens • Emphasizes nonnormative development, stereotypes of strained relationships • Self-fulfilling prophecy • Research indicates • Very little emotional distance between teens and parents • Parents and teens have similar beliefs about core values • If generation gap, it exists in matters of personal taste (e.g., style of dress, music preferences, leisure activities)

20. Parent-Adolescent Conflict • Few scholars on adolescence believe this anymore! • Adolescents and their parents agree on many of the most important aspects of their views of life • Studies in the 1960’s (which were the first to dispel the stereotype of ‘storm and stress’) found that • a great majority of adolescents like their parents, trust and admire them • when disagreement does occur it was usually over seemingly minor issues (e.g. clothes, curfews)

21. Conflict Details • Conflict with parents increases sharply in early adolescence and remains high for several years • Conflict in adolescence is especially frequent and intense between mothers and daughters • It is only in late adolescence and emerging adulthood that conflict with parents diminishes substantially

22. Reasons for Conflict in Early Adolescence • Biological Changes • Adolescents become bigger and stronger physically making it more difficult for parents to impose their authority by virtue of their greater physical presence • Cognitive Changes • Increased abilities for thinking abstracting and with more complexity make adolescents better arguers and it becomes more difficult for parents to prevail quickly in arguments with their children

23. What Do Parents and Teens Fight About? • Mundane issues, not big ones (e.g., curfew, leisure time, cleaning room) • Disagreements stem from different perspectives on issues • Parents see issues as a matter of right or wrong (social conventions or moral issues) • Teens see issues as a matter of personal choice (e.g., how to dress)

24. Culture and Conflict with Parents • Conflict is not universal and “natural” • Biological and cognitive changes take place among adolescents in all cultures • Parent-adolescent conflict is not typical in all cultures T H E R E FORE • Culture can take the raw materials of nature and shape them in highly diverse ways

25. Conflict in Traditional Cultures • It is rare for parents and adolescents to engage in the kind of frequent, petty conflicts typical of parent-adolescent relationship in the American majority culture • Reasons: • Economic: In non-industrialized traditional cultures, family members tend to rely a great deal on each other economically • Culture: Cultural beliefs about parental authority and the appropriate degree of adolescent independence

26. Is There Emotional Distance Between Teens and Parents? • Very little emotional distance between parents and adolescents (unlike stereotypes) • Most Teens • Feel close to parents • Respect parents’ judgment • Feel loved by parents • Respect parents as individuals • 20% say their top concern is not having enough time with parents

27. Parents and Emerging Adults • Typically relationships between parents and emerging adults improve once the young person leaves home • Emerging adults report greater closeness and fewer negative feelings toward their parents after moving • Those who had moved at least an hour away by car from their parents reported • highest levels of closeness to their parents • valued their parents’ opinions most highly • Those who remained home • Poorest relations with their parents in these respects

28. Parenting Styles • Baumrind’s classification: • Parental responsiveness (warmth) • The degree to which parents are sensitive to their children’s needs and the extent to which they express love, warmth, and concern for their children • Degree to which parent responds to child’s needs in an accepting, supportive manner • Parental demandingness (control) • The degree to which parents set down rules and expectations for behavior and require their children to comply with them • Degree to which parent expects/demands mature, responsible behavior from the child • Parental monitoring vs. psychological control

29. Styles (cont’d) Demandingness Responsiveness

30. High Demandingness Low Responsiveness High Responsiveness Low Demandingness The Interaction of Demandingness and Responsiveness Authoritarian Authoritative Indifferent Indulgent

31. Styles (cont’d) • Authoritative parents - warm but firm • Emotional autonomy granting • Authoritarian parents - obedience and conformity • Indulgent parents - benign, passive • Indifferent parents - minimize time and energy spent interacting with their child

32. Authoritarian Authoritative Indifferent Indulgent How parents might sound? “No you can’t go to the mall today. You know the family made plans to go to see your sick aunt. How about we drop you off at your friend’s house on the way home. Good enough compromise?” “Do it my way because I said so! Don’t argue with me … it’s my house and my rules” Adolescent: “Mom are you home … mom {no answer} … I guess I’m in charge of dinner again “Sure you can have a party in the house while we’re away – the key to the liquor cabinet in is you father’s sock drawer”

33. Styles (cont’d) • Authoritative: linked with positive outcomes • Self-esteem, social skills, intellectual growth, development of autonomy & identity, healthy peer relationships • Older adolescents (Weiss & Schwarz, 1996) • Personality (more agreeable, openness) • Academic achievement, less drug and alcohol use, positive adjustment

34. Styles (con’t) • Why is authoritative parenting effective? • Balance between restrictiveness and autonomy • Gradually acquire independence and build up self-reliance • Enabling interactions or discussions rather than constraining • Sets stage for strong attachment

35. Parenting and Temperament Adolescents who differ in temperament are affected in different ways by the same parenting

36. Styles (con’t)

37. Styles (con’t)

38. Styles (con’t)

39. American Parenting Styles • What beliefs are reflected in the parenting styles? • Research on child rearing goals shows that American parents tend to value independence highly as a quality they wish to promote in their children • Authoritarian parenting clearly discourages independence but the other three parenting styles which account for 85% (shown in the previous graph) reflect parents’ beliefs that it is good for adolescents to learn autonomy

40. A More Complex Picture of Parenting Effects • Reciprocal or Bidirectional Effects Adolescents not only are affected by their parents but also affect their parent in return • Complexity of Siblings Most research on the effects of parenting styles involves only one adolescent per family The few studies that have included more than one adolescent per family have shown that adolescent siblings within the same family often give very different accounts of what their parents are like toward them

41. A More Complex Picture of Parenting Effects • Differential Parenting • Parent’s behavior often differs toward siblings within the same family • Non-shared Environmental Influences • Differential parenting can result in non-shared environmental influences meaning that the adolescents experience quite different family environments and the consequences of these differences are evident in adolescents’ behaviour and psychological functioning

42. Parenting in Other Cultures • The most striking difference in parenting styles is how rare the authoritative parenting style is in non-Western cultures • Parents expect that their authority will be obeyed, without question and without requiring an explanation • The role of the parent carries greater inherent authority than it does in the West • Parents are not supposed to provide reasons why they should be respected and obeyed Does this mean that the typical parenting styles in traditional cultures is authoritarian? No. The fact is they do not fit very will into the parenting scheme presented. They are generally closest to authoritative parents because like them they tend to be high in demandingness and high in responsiveness. However their demandingness is very different from authoritative parents in American or Western cultures

43. Asian Americans Chao (2001) argues that White researchers misunderstand Asian American parenting and mislabel it as authoritarian Asian adolescents show none of the negative effects typically associated with authoritarian parenting They have higher educational achievement, lower rates of behavioural problems and lowers rates of psychological problems Latino Americans Latino parents in American society have also typically been classified as authoritarian The Latino cultural belief system places emphasis on respecto (respect and obedience to parents and elders – especially fathers) Latino cultural beliefs also believe is familismo (love, closeness and mutual obligations of Latino family life) Traditional Parenting Style Two Examples

44. Ethnic Differences in Parenting Styles • Authoritative parenting is less prevalent among African-American, Asian-American, or Hispanic-American families than among white families • Beneficial effects are found for all ethnic groups

45. Ethnic Differences in Parenting Styles • Authoritarian parenting is more prevalent among ethnic minority than among white families (even when SES is taken into account) • Adverse effects are greater for white adolescents than for ethnic minorities • May carry benefits for ethnic minorities who live in dangerous areas

46. Authoritative parenting was somewhat more common in middle-class families and White families Authoritarian parenting was more common in minority families than in White families American Parenting Styles

47. Autonomy and Attachment in the Family • Adolescents who are permitted to assert their own opinions within a family context that is secure and loving • develop higher self-esteem • develop more mature coping abilities • Adolescents whose autonomy is squelched • at risk for developing feelings of depression • Adolescents who do not feel connected • more likely than their peers to develop behavior problems

48. Attachment • Quality of relationship between parents and child/adolescent • Related to: competence, fewer feelings of depression, better mental well-being, identity development, less problem-behavior • Sets stage for other healthy relationships as well with peers, siblings, romantic partners

49. Attachment Theory • Originally developed by John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) • Attachments between parents and children have an evolutionary basis in the need for vulnerable young members of the species to stay in close proximity to adults who will care for and protect them • Mary Ainsworth (1967, 1982) described two general types of attachment: • Secure attachment • In which infants use the mother as a ‘secure base form which to explore’ but seek physical comfort and consolation from her if frightened or threatened • Insecure attachment • Infants are wary of exploring the environment and resist or avoid the mother when she attempts to offer comfort or consolation

50. Effects on Adolescents Adolescents’ well being Higher self-esteem Better psychological and physical health Tend to have closer relationships with friends and romantic partners More autonomous and self-reliant Effects on Emerging Adults Higher educational and occupational attainment Lower psychological problems Lower drug use Research on the Effects of Secure Attachment in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood Secure attachment to parents in adolescence is related to a variety of favorable outcomes