Adolescents’ Empathy and Prosocial Behavior in the Family Context: A Longitudinal Study

Children’s empathy and prosocial behavior play an important role in their social competence. Of the influential factors, research has demonstrated that parental behaviors and the quality of the parent–child relationship are important correlates of children’s development of empathy and prosocial behavior. The current study examined the associations between different types of parental behaviors (i.e., parental knowledge, parental solicitation, and parental psychological control), “balanced connectedness” in the parent–child relationship, which allows for both closeness and autonomy, and empathy and prosocial behavior in adolescents. The participants were 335 married couples (more than 80 % European American) and their adolescent child (49.0 % female; 10–13 years). Data were collected at three time points for parental behaviors, balanced parent–child connectedness, and adolescents’ empathy and prosocial behavior, respectively. The results of structural equation modeling suggested that adolescents’ perceptions of parental solicitation and parental psychological control may be associated with their empathy and prosocial behavior through their perceived balanced connectedness with parents. These findings suggest that enhancing balanced connectedness in the parent–child relationship may contribute to promoting empathy and prosocial behavior in adolescents over time. Further, this study suggests that parental solicitation may play a role in adolescents’ empathic and prosocial development, possibly depending on the quality of the parent–child relationship.     

Parent–Child Relationships,Parental Psychological Control,and Aggression: Maternal and Paternal Relationships

Few studies have examined both maternal and paternal parenting practices in the prediction of child outcomes despite evidence that underscores the salience of fathers throughout their children’s development. This study examined the role of the quality of mother–child and father–child relationships in buffering the influence of ineffective parenting practices on subsequent adolescent aggression. Measures of parental psychological control, the quality of the parent–child relationship, and youth aggressive behavior were completed by 163 (49 % female) mostly White and Asian adolescents and their parents during the eighth and ninth grades. Paternal psychological control predicted aggression when adolescents perceived low-quality relationships with their mothers. Similarly, maternal psychological control predicted aggression when adolescents perceived low-quality relationships with their fathers. Maternal psychological control was also associated with lower levels of aggression among adolescent males who reported a high-quality relationship with their father. These findings indicate that, when one parent exerts psychological control, the low-quality relationship the adolescent shares with the opposite gender parent increases risk for adolescent aggression. The findings also suggest that, as mothers exert psychological control, the high-quality parent–child relationship a son shares with his father decreases risk for adolescent aggression.     

Parent-Child Conflict during Elementary School as a Longitudinal Predictor of Sense of Purpose in Emerging Adulthood

Having a sense of purpose is viewed as a benchmark of adaptive development. Though adolescence and emerging adulthood are viewed as central periods for the development of a purpose, work still is needed to understand the childhood factors that influence this developmental process. The current study provides an initial investigation into whether parent-child conflict during elementary school predicts later sense of purpose, assessed during emerging adulthood (mean age: 21.01 years; range: 19.97–23.53). The sample included 1074 students (50% female), and their parents, who both reported on their levels of parent-child conflict during grades 1–5. Higher levels of parent-child conflict were associated with lower levels of purpose in emerging adulthood. Moreover, the study examined whether these effects remained when predicting the variance unique to purpose while accounting for other indicators of well-being in emerging adulthood. Bi-factor models demonstrated that the child’s perception of mother-child conflict has a unique prospective effect on purpose in emerging adulthood, above and beyond its negative association with general well-being. The findings are discussed with respect to how positive parent-child relationships may prove important for starting youth on the path to purpose.

     

Cultural Orientations,Parental Beliefs and Practices,and Latino Adolescents’ Autonomy and Independence

Despite the salience of behavioral autonomy and independence to parent–child interactions during middle adolescence, little is known about parenting processes pertinent to youth autonomy development for Latino families. Among a diverse sample of 684 Latino-origin parent–adolescent dyads in Houston, Texas, this study examines how parents’ cultural orientations are associated directly and indirectly, through parental beliefs, with parenting practices giving youth behavioral autonomy and independence. Informed by social domain theory, the study’s parenting constructs pertain to youth behaviors in an “ambiguously personal” domain—activities that adolescents believe are up to youth to decide, but which parents might argue require parents’ supervision, knowledge, and/or decision-making. Results for latent profile analyses of parents’ cultural identity across various facets of acculturation indicate considerable cultural heterogeneity among Latino parents. Although 43 % of parents have a Latino cultural orientation, others represent Spanish-speaking/bicultural (21 %), bilingual/bicultural (15 %), English-speaking/bicultural (15 %), or US (6 %) cultural orientations. Structural equation modeling results indicate that bilingual/bicultural, English-speaking/bicultural, and US-oriented parents report less emphasis on the legitimacy of parental authority and younger age expectations for youth to engage in independent behaviors than do Latino-oriented parents. Parental beliefs endorsing youth’s behavioral independence and autonomy, in turn, are associated with less stringent parental rules (parental report), less parental supervision (parental and youth report), and more youth autonomy in decision-making (parental and youth report). Evidence thus supports the idea that the diverse cultural orientations of Latino parents in the US may result in considerable variations in parenting processes pertinent to Latino adolescents’ development.     

The Relationship Between Parents’ Intimate Partner Victimization and Youths’ Adolescent Relationship Abuse

Witnessing inter-parental intimate partner violence has been found to be associated with adolescents’ own relationship abuse. This study investigates the relationship between patterns of inter-parental intimate partner verbal and physical violence victimization reported by parents and their children’s reports of dating abuse experiences and behavior. Latent class analysis was performed on a sample of 610 parents (42% male and 67% white) and their dating adolescent children (ages 12–21 years; 52% male). Parents reported five types of victimization by their partners in the past year, while youth concurrently reported their own victimization and perpetration within their dating relationships. Three profiles of parents’ intimate partner victimization were related to youth relationship abuse experiences and behaviors. Children of parents who experienced verbal abuse were more likely to experience similar patterns in their own relationships, whereas children of parents who report physical and verbal abuse were more likely to report psychological, physical and sexual abusive encounters in their partnerships. Findings indicate that parents’ relationship quality and abusive behaviors may have a long lasting effect on their children as they enter mid and late adolescence. Parents should pay attention to their own relationship quality and behavior even as their teen-age children gain independence.     

Adolescent Agentic Orientations: Contemporaneous Family Influence,Parental Biography and Intergenerational Development

Agentic orientations developed in adolescence have been linked to better health, well-being, and achievements in the years following. This study examines longitudinal parental influences on the development of adolescent children’s agentic orientations, captured by the core constructs of mastery beliefs and generalized life expectations. Drawing on multigenerational panel data from the United States (1991–2011), the study examines contemporaneous family factors, but also how parental biographies (their own transition to adulthood) and parents’ own adolescent agentic orientations influence their adolescent children. Study adolescents were 46% male, 52% white, and 15.6 years old on average. The findings indicate that parents’ early orientations and experiences in the transition to adulthood have little effect on their children’s mastery beliefs, but that parents’ generalized life expectations (in adolescence) and having married before having the child were associated with their children’s more optimistic life expectations. Contemporaneous family income and optimistic expectations among parents-as-adolescents were somewhat substitutable as positive influences on adolescents’ optimistic life expectations. The findings contribute to our understanding of intergenerational and over-time influences on these key adolescent orientations.     

Parental Support and Youth Occupational Attainment: Help or Hindrance?

Although several concerns surround the transition to adulthood and youth increasingly rely on parental support, our knowledge about the implications of parental support for youth development and transition to adulthood is limited. This study fills this gap by conceptualizing development within a life course perspective that links social inequality and early life course transitions. It draws on a subsample of youth observed between age 18 and 28 from the Transition to Adulthood supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics 2005–2015 (N?=?7,542; 53% female, 51.3% white). Mixed-effects models reveal that the more direct financial transfers youth receive, the higher their occupational status. Yet, indirect financial support parents offer through co-residence shows the opposite pattern. Among youth receiving monetary transfers, college graduates have particularly high occupational status; however, among youth living with their parents, college graduates have the lowest occupational status. Although different types of parental support may equally act as safety nets, their divergent implications for youths’ occupational attainment raise concerns about the reproduction and possible intensification of inequality during this developmental stage.     

Parents’ Social Comparisons of Siblings and Youth Problem Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model

Parents compare their children to one another; those comparisons may have implications for the way mothers and fathers treat their children, as well as their children’s behavior. Data were collected annually for three years with parents, firstborns, and secondborns from 385 families (Time 1 age: firstborns, 15.71, SD?=?1.07, 52% female; secondborns, 13.18, SD?=?1.29, 50% female). Parents’ beliefs that one child was better behaved predicted differences in siblings’ reports of parent-child conflict. Additionally, for siblings close in age, mothers’ comparisons at Time 1 predicted youth’s problem behavior at Time 3 through siblings’ differential conflict with mothers. The results support and extend tenets from Social Comparison and Expectancy Value theories in regards to social comparison within families.     

A Cross-National Study Examining the Role of Executive Function and Emotion Regulation in the Relationship between Children’s Television Exposure and Consumer Behavior

Across industrialized nations, children and teens are a highly prized target for the advertising industry because young people have a tremendous influence on family purchases; however, media scholars have long suggested that young people are a fundamentally vulnerable audience because they lack the necessary developmental competencies to adequately process and protect themselves from advertising communications. Yet, the precise developmental mechanisms have not been clearly articulated nor is there a clear understanding of how these competencies extend across childhood contexts (e.g., developmental phase, cultures). The current study seeks to lend clarity to this matter by looking at the potential influence that children’s executive function and emotion regulation have on the relationship between television exposure (as a proxy of exposure to advertising messages and other consumption-oriented media content) and consumer behavior across a broad range of ages from two wealthy industrialized countries. Mothers of young elementary school children (5–8 years) and early adolescents (9–12 years) in the Netherlands (N?=?333, 51.7% female child) and the United States of America (N?=?810, 49.6% female child) took part in an online survey to report on their child’s cognitive/affective development, media use, and consumer behavior (i.e., purchase requests, purchase related conflict). The results showed that across ages, executive function via attentional shifting moderated the link between purchase requests and purchase conflict, whereas positively valenced emotion regulation moderated the same relationship but only for older children. Lastly, the findings revealed that while there are differences in reported behavior among children in these two countries, the developmental processes tend to work in the same manner. The discussion focuses on what these findings mean for children’s consumer development as they approach adolescence and how researchers and child advocates should take these developmental factors into account when considering children’s potential vulnerability as consumers.

     

Buffer or Brake? The Role of Sexuality-Specific Parenting in Adolescents’ Sexualized Media Consumption and Sexual Development

One main source of sexual socialization lies within family interactions. Especially sexuality-specific parenting may determine adolescents’ sexual development—adolescents’ sexual behavior and sexual risk behavior, sexualized media consumption and permissive sexual attitudes—to a significant extent, but different ideas exist about how this works. In this longitudinal study, we examined two hypotheses on how sexuality-specific parenting—parenting aimed specifically at children’s sexual attitudes and behaviors—relates to adolescents’ sexual development. A first buffer hypothesis states that parents’ instructive media discussions with their children—called instructive mediation—buffers the effect of sexualized media consumption on adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behavior and, vice versa, the effect of adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behavior on sexualized media consumption. A second brake hypothesis states that parents, by communicating love-and-respect oriented sexual norms, slow down adolescents’ development toward increased sexualized media use, permissive sexual attitudes, and sexual behavior and sexual risk behavior. Using four-wave longitudinal data from 514 Dutch adolescents aged 13–16 years (49.8% female), we found evidence to support a brake effect. More frequent parental communication of love-and-respect oriented sexual norms was associated with less permissive sexual attitudes and, for boys, with less advanced sexual behavior and a less rapid increase in sexual risk behavior. Parents’ instructive mediation regarding adolescents’ sexualized media consumption was associated with less permissive sexual attitudes at baseline, but only for girls. No systematic evidence emerged for a buffer effect of parents’ instructive mediation. In conclusion, although our data seem to suggest that parent–child communication about sex is oftentimes “after the fact”, we also find that more directive parental communication that conveys love-and-respect oriented sexual norms brake adolescents’ move toward sexual maturity.     

Unpacking Acculturation: Cultural Orientations and Educational Attainment Among Mexican-Origin Youth

Given educational risks facing Mexican-origin children of immigrant parents, it is important to understand how aspects of the acculturation process influence Mexican-origin youth's educational success. Drawing from selective assimilation theory, this study examined how cultural orientations across myriad facets of acculturation were associated with the educational attainment of second-generation Mexican immigrant youth. The sample included 755 Mexican-origin youth (50% female) in the "Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study." Results from structural equation models indicated that youth reporting greater facility in the English language and a stronger value on familism attained higher levels of education in young adulthood than did other youth. Parents' U.S. social ties and youth's value on early paid work were associated with less educational attainment. Innovative findings from this study indicate the importance of considering both Mexican and American cultural orientations across myriad facets of acculturation for understanding second-generation immigrant Mexican youth's educational attainment.     

Chinese Fathers in the Twentieth Century: Changing Roles as Parents and as Men

ABSTRACT

Fathers and fatherhood are increasingly visible in social science scholarship and public discourse, although the father’s different roles are yet to be integrated. Moreover, most existing studies on fathers and fatherhood focus on either European or North American fathers, or contemporary non-Western fathers; little is known about the historical changes in fatherhood culture in non-Western contexts. This article explores how elite fathers in Republican, Socialist, and Reform-era China see their roles as parents and as men amidst dramatic social changes in intergenerational and gender relations. A close examination of five elite fathers’ family letters and autobiographical writings reveals that the parent–child hierarchy began to diminish as early as Republican-era China and continued to decrease during the Socialist and Reform eras, as seen in fathers’ increasing recognition of their children’s autonomy and the heightened sense of intimacy in the father–child bond. However, changes in gender relations, especially in the fathers’ generation (as opposed to the fathers’ gender beliefs and practices towards their children) followed a much less straightforward path. The asynchronized changes in different facets of Chinese fatherhood may be attributed to the unique and complicated modern history of China in the twentieth century.     

Outcomes for children who care for a parent with a severe illness or substance abuse

Quantitative studies of children’s caring activities during parental illness have increased in the past 10 years. However, the various outcomes for these children have been investigated less frequently. In the present study, we investigate whether the children have different outcomes when the parent has a severe physical illness, mental illness, or substance abuse and whether any factors are associated with the positive and negative outcomes of the children’s caregiving. This was a cross-sectional, multicenter study. We recruited parents who were out- or inpatients in five public hospitals in Norway as well as their children. The sample included 246 children ages 8–18 and 238 of their parents with a severe physical illness, mental illness, or substance abuse. Ten percent reported negative outcomes at a clinical level of concern, and nearly half of the children reported stress. However, the outcomes were not significantly different across parental illness groups. Positive and negative outcomes were associated with the nature of caring activities (e.g., personal care, financial and practical management, household management), social skills, and perceived external locus of control. Health professionals must provide a more comprehensive and overall assessment of both the parents’ and the children’s needs. To recognize the role taken by the child, an assessment of children’s caring activities and their need for adequate information should be performed. In particular, should the children’s need for follow-up regarding caring activities, respite, and emotional support be assessed to secure their necessary skills and feeling of mastery.     

Do Family and Parenting Factors in Adolescence Influence Condom Use in Early Adulthood in a Multiethnic Sample of Young Adults?

Studies show that positive family factors help protect adolescents from engaging in risky sexual activities, but do they continue to protect adolescents as they transition to late adolescence/early adulthood? Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we examined whether family support, parent–child closeness, parental control/monitoring of adolescent behaviors and parent–child communication about sex, assessed in adolescence, were related to condom use in late adolescence/early adulthood among African American (n = 1,986), Chinese American (n = 163), Mexican American (n = 1,011) and White (n = 6,971) youth. Controlling for demographic variables and number of sex partners, the results showed that family support was positively related and parent–child communication was negatively related to condom use for the sample as a whole and for the white sample, but not for the other groups. Parent–child communication about sex and parental control were negatively related to condom use in the Chinese American sample. None of the family factors was related to condom use in the African American or Mexican American samples. Overall, parents talked more with daughters than sons about sexual matters. Condom use was most common among African Americans and among males. Greater attention to cultural expectations regarding sex and gender roles, as well as the causal ordering of effects, are important directions for future research.     

Compliance with Parents’ Rules: Between-Person and Within-Person Predictions

The current study focused on the childhood to adolescence transition and sought to determine why some children are more compliant than others as well as why children comply more often with some of their parents’ rules than with others. Indices of parents’ agency and children’s agency were tested as predictors of compliance. Parent-based decision-making and parents’ responses to expressed disagreement served as indices of parents’ agency while children’s beliefs regarding the legitimacy of parents’ rules and felt obligation to obey rules served as indices of children’s agency. Parent–child dyads (n = 218; 51 % female, 49 % European American, 47 % African American) were interviewed during the summers following the children’s 5th (M adolescent age = 11.9 years) and 6th grade school years. Children who felt that their parents’ rules were more legitimate were more compliant overall than were children who felt that the rules were less legitimate. Children compiled more with rules governing topics perceived to be legitimately regulated by parents, when parents made more decisions regarding the topic and when parents responded to disagreement by standing strong. Results were generally consistent across parents’ and children’s reports of compliance and across cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. At the transition from childhood to adolescence, only children’s agency explained why some children are more compliant than others, but parents’ and children’s agency helped to explain why children complied with some rules more than others.     

Hope in Context: Developmental Profiles of Trust,Hopeful Future Expectations,and Civic Engagement Across Adolescence

Hopeful expectations for the future have been shown to play an important role in the positive development of youth, including youth contributions to society. Although theory and some research suggest that familial socialization may influence future-oriented cognitions, little work has focused on the possible interrelation of parent–child relationships and the development of hope, particularly during adolescence. Accordingly, the first goal of this study was to identify developmental profiles of youth with respect to hopeful future expectations (HFE) and parental trust across adolescence. Next, we explored whether these developmental trajectories were related to youth Contribution, indexed by community leadership, service, and helping attitudes and behaviors. We used growth mixture modeling to simultaneously examine trajectories of adolescents’ perceived connections with parents (indexed by parent trust) and HFE among 1,432 participants (59 % female) from Waves 3 through 6 (Grades 7 through 10) of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. A four-profile model provided the best fit to the data, with the following profiles: Moderate HFE/U-shaped Trust; Moderate HFE/Increasing Trust; Both Decreasing; and Both High Stable profiles. We then explored whether hope-trust profiles were related to youth Contribution in Wave 7. Contrary to hypotheses, results indicated that the profile reflecting the greatest discrepancy in HFE and trust across early to middle adolescence (i.e., Moderate Hope/U-shaped Trust) was associated with the highest mean Contribution scores. The implications of the findings for future theory and research are discussed.     

Chapter 11: Therapeutic Foster Parent:

Training can help foster parents manage reactions to the foster child, avoid stress and burnout, and cope with the difficult times so that placement is sustained. Training is necessary so foster parents will not take the child's aggressive behavior personally, will avoid becoming embroiled in power struggles, and will be less likely to become hurt or embarrassed by the child's behavior. Training will involve individual consultation by the social worker as well as participation in a foster parent group. Staff will assistn foster parents to develop behavioral management and communication skills as well as their own coping and self-control skills. Foster parents are given permission to take care of their own needs, are assisted in developing stress management skills, learn how to increase their own self-esteem, and learn to use cognitive approaches to handle their own emotions. Foster parents develop an understanding that they cannot change the child's behavior but can only change the way which they respond to the child, which may provide the child opportunities to change his or her own behavior.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Aspirations in Chinese Families: Identifying Mediators and Moderators

Parents’ educational aspirations for youth play an important role in shaping youth’s own educational aspirations; however, little is known about how and in what context parents may transmit their aspirations to youth effectively. This is of particular interest and import to be examined in Chinese families, given Chinese cultural emphasis on educational achievement and Chinese youth’s outstanding academic performance internationally. By integrating several key theories of motivation and parental socialization (i.e., the expectancy-value model of academic achievement, the two-step model of value transmission, the contextual model of parenting, and the self-determination theory), the current study investigated simultaneously the mediating roles of parental involvement in youth’s learning and youth’s perceptions of parental aspirations, as well as the moderating role of parental warmth in the intergenerational transmission process of educational aspirations in Chinese families. A two-wave longitudinal study spanning about half a year was conducted among 323 Chinese seventh graders (54% female; M_age?=?13.25 years) and one of their parents (median educational attainment?=?completion of high school, median monthly income?=?USD 766–1226). It was found that parental educational aspirations for youth were related positively both indirectly through parental involvement and directly to youth’s perceptions of parental aspirations, which in turn were associated positively with youth’s own educational aspirations about half a year later. It was also found that parental educational aspirations for youth and youth’s own educational aspirations were associated positively with each other only when youth reported experiencing high levels of parental warmth, but unrelated when youth reported experiencing low levels of parental warmth, whereas such moderating effects of parental warmth were absent on the links from parental aspirations to youth’s perceptions of parental aspirations and parental involvement. These findings highlight the importance of integrating multiple theories to understand parent-to-youth transmission of educational aspirations in non-western cultures, which helps not only reveal generalizability, as well as boundary conditions for Western-originated theories, but also inform practical endeavors at promoting youth’s educational achievement worldwide to draw on strengths of different cultures.     

The Tangled Web: Delinquency, Deception, and Parental Attachment

Delinquent youth display weaker attachment to their parents than do other youth, but the reasons for this remain unclear. One explanation is that delinquent youth poison their relations with parents by lying to them about their friends, behavior, whereabouts, and more. Analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health reveals that lying to parents is an exceptionally strong and robust correlate of delinquent behavior, and is associated with a variety of surreptitious behaviors – late bedtimes, hanging with friends, concealing whereabouts. Lying to parents appears to have a progressively negative impact on the parent-child bond, meaning that the well-established attachment/delinquency association is not solely a parent effect. Youth who lie to their parents do not appear to do so blithely, however. Compared to other youth, they hold themselves in lower regard and are more often depressed. Although parents are often angered by and distrustful of deceitful children, their children's fabrications may say less about their regard for their parents than about the strength of other loyalties.