The Cultural and Developmental Significance of Parenting Processes in Adolescent Anxiety and Depression Symptoms

This study examined the cultural and developmental significance of maternal and paternal parenting processes (closeness, support, monitoring, communication, conflict, and peer approval) for measures of anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescents from Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States (N=6,935). Across all cultural contexts, measures of maternal and paternal support and conflict were most consistently associated with measures of internalizing behaviors. Few differences were observed in the importance of individual parenting processes for anxiety or depression symptoms across cultures. Additionally, with the exception of maternal conflict for anxiety and depression symptoms and paternal closeness for depression symptoms, none of the parenting process dimensions differed in importance for internalizing behaviors across developmental periods (middle versus late adolescence). The investigation provides evidence of great similarity in developmental processes, both across cultural contexts and developmental periods.

Discrepant Parent-Adolescent Reports of Parenting Practices: Associations with Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Discrepancies in multi-informant reports of parenting practices represent a meaningful clinical construct that can be harnessed to predict adolescent mental...     

Childhood ADHD Symptoms,Parent Emotion Socialization,and Adolescent Peer Problems: Indirect Effects Through Emotion Dysregulation

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Although parent reactions to children’s negative emotions are important to the development of adolescent social and emotional functioning, there is a lack...     

Perceived Parental Monitoring,Adolescent Disclosure,and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: A Longitudinal Examination

Parental monitoring has long been stressed as an important parenting practice in reducing adolescents’ susceptibility to depressive symptoms. Reviews have revealed, however, that measures of monitoring have been confounded with parental knowledge, and that the role of adolescent disclosure has been neglected. In the present study, adolescents (N = 2,941; 51.3% female) were surveyed each year from grades 9–12. To disentangle parenting factors, bidirectional associations among parental knowledge, adolescent disclosure, and parental monitoring (i.e., solicitation and control) were examined. Higher parental knowledge was associated with lower adolescent depressive symptoms over time. Adolescent disclosure and parental control also predicted lower adolescent depressive symptoms indirectly through knowledge. Conversely, higher adolescent depressive symptoms predicted lower parental knowledge, adolescent disclosure, and parental solicitation over time, highlighting the bidirectional nature of associations among parenting factors and adolescent depressive symptoms. Importantly, these effects were invariant across gender and grade, suggesting that interventions can be broadly based.     

Going Through the Rites of Passage: Timing and Transition of Menarche,Childhood Sexual Abuse,and Anxiety Symptoms in Girls

Menarche is a discrete, transitional event that holds considerable personal, social, biological, and developmental significance. The present longitudinal study examined both the transition and timing of menarche on the trajectory of anxiety in girls with histories of childhood maltreatment (N = 93; 63% European American, 14% multiracial, 10% Latino, 9% African American, and 4% Native American). We hypothesized that because menarche is a novel, unfamiliar experience, girls would show greater anxiety around the time of menarche. The anxiety-provoking nature of menarche may be accentuated among earlier-maturing girls and girls with histories of childhood sexual abuse. Results indicated that earlier-maturing girls were more anxious in the pre- and peri-menarche periods than their later-maturing peers; however, their anxiety declined after menarche. Childhood sexual abuse was associated with heightened anxiety throughout this transition. The developmental significance of the timing and transition of menarche in relation to childhood sexual abuse and anxiety is discussed.     

Developmental Pathways from Genetic,Prenatal, Parenting and Emotional/Behavioral Risk to Cortisol Reactivity and Adolescent Substance Use: A TRAILS Study

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Cortisol reactivity is a frequently studied biomarker of substance use, though infrequently examined in adolescence. However, past research provides evidence that...     

Co-Developmental Trajectories of Specific Anxiety Symptoms from Middle Childhood to Early Adolescence: Associations with Psychological Well-Being and Academic Achievement

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Different types of specific anxiety symptoms commonly co-occur but also display distinct developmental trajectories over time in children and adolescents....     

The Role of Deliberative Decision Making,Parenting, and Friends in Adolescent Risk Behaviors

Adolescents may engage in risk behaviors that jeopardize their futures. Although adolescent risk-taking has long been attributed to faulty decision making, surprisingly little research has directly examined this link. This study examined the role of deliberative decision making (the tendency to consider options and consequences before making a decision) and social contextual variables (parenting and friend influences) in alcohol and drug use, risky sex, and delinquency. Participants were 7,748 adolescents (50% female) in grades 7–11 from the Add Health dataset (M age = 14.87, SD = 1.54). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that deliberative decision making and contextual variables were associated with risk behavior concurrently and 1 year later. Furthermore, deliberative decision making interacted with social contextual variables in some models, indicating that deliberative decision making may be especially important in certain contexts. These findings suggest that both cognitive and social factors need to be considered to explain adolescents’ decisions to engage in risk behavior.     

Existential Anxiety in Adolescents: Prevalence, Structure, Association with Psychological Symptoms and Identity Development

Existential anxiety is hypothesized to be a core human issue in a great deal of theoretical and philosophical writing. However, little is known about the emergence of these concerns and their relation to emotional functioning in youth. The purpose of this study was to examine the phenomenon of existential anxiety in a sample of adolescents. Data on existential concerns, identity development and psychological symptoms were collected on a sample of 139 youth in grades 9–12. Results indicated that existential anxiety concerns have a theoretically consistent factor structure, are common among adolescents, and are associated with psychological symptoms, as well as identity issues. Results are discussed with regard to the importance of existential concerns in the lives of youth and the need for additional research.Received PhD from Florida International University. Interests are identity development including associated anxiety and distress, cross-national comparisons, and the development of identity interventions.Received PhD from Florida International University. Interests focus on the developmental psychopathology of anxiety and depression.Received PhD from the University of Arizona. Interests include a range of topics in developmental psychopathology, prevention, program evaluation, and research methodology.     

Perceptions of Parenting in Daily Life: Adolescent-Parent Differences and Associations with Adolescent Affect

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescents can perceive parenting quite differently than parents themselves and these discrepancies may relate to adolescent well-being. The current study aimed...     

Conflict, Support and Coping as Mediators of the Relation Between Degrading Parenting and Adolescent Adjustment

Relatively few studies have examined psychological maltreatment as a risk factor for adolescent psychopathology. This cross-sectional study evaluated mother-adolescent conflict frequency, maternal support, and avoidant coping as mediators of relations between mother's degrading parenting and adolescent conduct problems and internalizing. Analyses were conducted to determine if relations between model constructs were influenced by reporter, gender, or ethnicity. The sample included 232 adolescents and their mothers. Household interviews were conducted with families who were randomly selected from two urban school districts. The proposed model was estimated using path analysis and generally fit the data well. Results suggested that mothers’ degrading parenting was associated with risk for internalizing and conduct problems, regardless of adolescent gender or ethnicity. Mother-adolescent conflict frequency mediated relations between mothers’ degrading parenting and adolescent adjustment. Maternal support and avoidant coping mediated relations between degrading parenting and internalizing when adolescent report was used.     

Interparental Conflict,Parenting, and Childhood Depression in a Diverse Urban Population: The Role of General Cognitive Style

Research on the mechanisms by which interparental conflict (IPC) affects child depression suggests that both parenting and children’s conflict appraisals play important roles, but few studies have explored the role of general cognitive style or included both parenting and cognitions in the same design. Moreover, the effects of IPC on minority children are not well understood. In this longitudinal study, parenting was examined as a mediator of the relation between increasing IPC and change in depression. General cognitive style was included as a moderator. The combined influence of parenting and cognitions was also explored. A racially and ethnically diverse sample of 88 fifth and sixth graders from two urban schools reported their cognitive style, depressive symptoms, and perceptions of conflict and parenting at two time points separated by one year. Parental warmth/rejection mediated the relation between IPC and depression, and general cognitive style acted as a moderator. Parenting, cognitive style, and IPC did not significantly interact to predict change in depression over time. Findings indicate that both parenting and children’s general cognitive style play a role in understanding the impact of increasing IPC on children’s well-being.     

Depression,Anxiety, and Peer Victimization: Bidirectional Relationships and Associated Outcomes Transitioning from Childhood to Adolescence

Experiences of depression, anxiety, and peer victimization have each been found to predict one another, and to predict negative outcomes in the domains of school connectedness, social functioning, quality of life, and physical health. However, the common co-occurrence of depression, anxiety, and peer victimization experiences has made it difficult to disentangle their unique roles in these associations. The present study thus sought to characterize the precise nature of the bidirectional relationships between depressive symptoms, anxiety, and victimization over time, and to examine their unique sequelae during the transition from childhood to early adolescence. Longitudinal multi-informant (child-reported, parent-reported, and teacher-reported) data from a nationally representative sample were analyzed using path analysis when the study child was aged 10–11 (n=?4169; M_age?=?10.3; 48.8% female) and aged 12–13 (n=?3956; M_age?=?12.4; 48.2% female). Depressive symptoms, anxiety, and peer victimization had small but significant unique bidirectional relationships. All three constructs also uniquely and prospectively predicted poorer life functioning across all domains examined. These results demonstrate that current interventions should broaden their scope to simultaneously target depression, anxiety, and peer victimization, as each of these experiences independently act as additive risk factors for subsequent negative outcomes.

     

Adolescent Social Media Use: Pitfalls and Promises in Relation to Cybervictimization,Friend Support,and Depressive Symptoms

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - The saturation of social media use in adolescents’ lives has raised questions about both the risks and positive outcomes that may be associated with use....     

A Tri-Directional Examination of Parental Personality,Parenting Behaviors,and Contextual Factors in Influencing Adolescent Behavioral Outcomes

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Links between parental personality, parenting, and adolescent behavior have been well established. However, extant research is limited by the sole focus on...     

Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Adolescent Health Risk Problems: The Role of School Engagement

Maternal depressive symptoms disrupt positive youth development, though the pervasiveness of this disruption is understudied. Additionally, it remains unknown whether prosocial factors such as adolescent school engagement may buffer against this risk factor. Using multigenerational, longitudinal data spanning ten years from an ethnically diverse sample of mother-child dyads (66% Black, 17% Hispanic, and 17% White), this study examines the effect of maternal depressive symptoms in late childhood (ages 8–13) on the development and progression of offspring depressive symptoms, substance use, and delinquent behavior during adolescence (ages 14–17). Further, the study examines whether school engagement moderates the ill effects of maternal depressive symptoms. Mother-son (n?=?212) and mother-daughter (n?=?215) dyads are compared to assess for similarities and differences between male and female offspring. The results indicate that offspring of mothers with greater maternal depressive symptoms are more likely to display higher levels of depressive symptoms, substance use, and delinquency throughout adolescence, although important nuances emerge across outcome and child sex. Additionally, while school engagement itself is associated with reduced depressive symptoms, substance use and delinquency among adolescents, it is not profound enough to offset the risk posed by maternal depressive symptoms. The findings of this study reinforce the pervasive, negative, intergenerational impact of maternal depressive symptoms and has implications for prevention and intervention efforts for adolescent health risk problems.