10.2 Relationships with Others

Adolescence is often characterized as a time for personal rebellion. That perspective overlooks the reality that most teenagers are powerfully influenced by many people. Social influences include teachers, grandparents, and other relatives, as well as popular musicians, actors, sports stars, and other luminaries. Here we focus on the two most powerful influences, parents and peers.

Not only are parents and peers impactful social influences, but each also affects the other. When adolescents have a supportive, affectionate relationship with their parents, they tend to have similar relationships with their peers; when they fight with their parents, they are likely to fight with peers. This anger spillover is reciprocal though less common (Chung et al., 2011); a conflict with a friend makes it likely that a teen will soon conflict with a parent.

Parents

Parent–adolescent relationships affect every aspect of adolescent development. Disputes are common because the adolescent’s drive for independence, arising from biological as well as psychological impulses, clashes with the parents’ desire to maintain control (Eisenberg et al., 2008; Laursen & Collins, 2009). Normally, parent–adolescent conflict, especially between mothers and daughters, peaks in early adolescence. It usually manifests as bickering—repeated, petty arguments (more nagging than fighting) about routine, day-to-day concerns such as cleanliness, clothes, chores, and schedules (Eisenberg et al., 2008).

Some bickering may indicate a healthy family, since close relationships almost always include conflict (Smetana et al., 2004). One of the reasons for conflict is that the two generations may have different interpretations of the same situation. As you read in Chapter 5, there are areas of a teenager’s life that he or she believes are “off limits” to parents and their rules. If parents encroach on a teen’s personal preferences and choices, this will lead to conflicts and disagreements. For example, a teen’s messy room is a common battlefield. Parents focus on issues such as health and sanitation (perhaps there are dirty plates among the clothes) or on keeping order in the house (a social convention). On the other hand, the teen may believe that the bedroom is personal space and therefore beyond the parents’ authority (Smetana et al., 2003).

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There may be a discrepancy in the way parents and youths view each other’s intentions. Parents sometimes think their offspring have more negative thoughts than other children have, and adolescents imagine much more intrusive control than the parents intend (Sillars et al., 2010). Both generations would benefit if they were more explicit. For instance, if the argument is only about the dirty socks on the floor, the solution is easy: The teenager can put them in the laundry. However, if the fight is not really about socks but about parents dictating personal habits, of course the child resists.

These parent–adolescent conflicts are common in many families around the world, including youth of Arab, Croatian, East Asian, and South Asian backgrounds in Canada (Gonsalves & Chuang, 2010; Samarin & Chuang, 2012), as well as various ethnic groups in the United States (Fuligni, 1998) and other countries. This finding emphasizes that developing one’s independence is not a cultural artifact, but developmental and relevant for all.

With time, parents gradually grant more autonomy, and positive relationships typically return to preadolescent levels (Collins & Laursen, 2004). By age 18, many teenagers appreciate their parents, who have learned to allow more independence (Masche, 2010).

Closeness Within the FamilyFamily closeness has four aspects:

1. communication (Do family members talk openly with one another?)
2. support (Do they rely on one another?)
3. connectedness (How emotionally close are they?)
4. control (Do parents encourage or limit adolescent autonomy?)

No developmentalist doubts that the first two, communication and support, are helpful, and perhaps essential. Patterns set in place during childhood continue, ideally buffering some of the turbulence of adolescence (Cleveland et al., 2005; Laursen & Collins, 2009). As you saw in earlier chapters, communication leads to more prosocial behaviour and positive parent—child relationships, aiding development at every age. Regarding the other two aspects, connectedness and control, consequences vary and observers differ in what they see.

How do you react to this example, written by a student?

This student was grateful to her parents, but others might wonder whether her early motherhood gave her parents too much control, requiring dependency instead of autonomy. If so, the emotional closeness that seems helpful may in fact not be. A longitudinal study of pregnant adolescents found that most (but not all) young mothers and their children fared best if the teen’s parents did not take over child care (Borkowski et al., 2007). Taking over meant taking too much control and implied that the mother was incapable of mothering.

A related issue is parental monitoring—that is, parental knowledge about each child’s whereabouts, activities, and companions. Some adolescents happily tell parents about their activities, whereas others are secretive (Vieno et al., 2009). Most are selective, omitting things their parents would not approve of (Brown & Bakken, 2011).

Monitoring is a good sign if it indicates mutual trust (Kerr et al., 2010). When parental knowledge is the result of a warm, supportive relationship, children are likely to become confident, well-educated adults, avoiding drugs and risky sex (G. M. Barnes et al., 2006; Fletcher et al., 2004). However, monitoring may be harmful when it derives from suspicion.

A breakdown in parent–youth relationships may be due to too much criticism and control, which might stop dialogue instead of improving communication and support (Tilton-Weaver et al., 2010). Overly restrictive and controlling parenting correlates with many adolescent problems, including depression (Brown & Bakken, 2011).

Finding the right balance between freedom and control has the added complication of the particular personality of the child. As one scholar notes, “deft parental steering” is useful, but if “an adolescent is engaged in more than minor delinquent behavior, a much more structured and rule-based approach may be needed” (Capaldi, 2003).

In Chapter 6, you learned that authoritative parenting is usually best for children and that uninvolved parenting is worst. This holds true for adolescents. Although teenagers may say they no longer need their parents, neglect is always destructive.

One example is Joy. When she was 16, her stepfather said: “Teens all around here [are] doing booze and doing drugs…. But my Joy here ain’t into that stuff” (quoted in C. Smith & Lundquist, 2005). In fact, however, Joy was smoking pot, drinking alcohol, and having sex with her boyfriend. She said she

Peer Power

Adolescents rely on peers to help them navigate the physical changes of puberty, the intellectual challenges of high school, and the social changes of leaving childhood. Peers are much more useful for these three challenges than parents are. For instance, adolescents rely on friends to hear every detail of a romantic interaction, providing an audience and advice, to soften breakups and encourage new loves (Mehta & Strough, 2009). Friends are usually of the same sex and same sexual orientation, but not necessarily so; the crucial factor is that the friend is willing to listen and encourage.

Peer PressureFriendships are important at every stage, but during early adolescence, peers have increased power because popularity is also coveted (LaFontana & Cillessen, 2010). All children, each in their own way, seek their peers’ acceptance. Peer power can lead to constructive, destructive, or neutral behaviour.

Adults sometimes fear peer pressure, that is, that peers will push an adolescent to try drugs, break the law, or do other things the child would never do. It is true that young people can lead one another into trouble. Collectively, peers sometimes provide deviancy training, whereby one person shows another how to circumvent adult restrictions (Dishion et al., 2001). There is a developmental progression here: For example, the combination of problem behaviour, school marginalization, and low academic performance at age 11 leads to gang involvement two years later, deviancy training two years after that, and violent behaviour at age 18 or 19 (Dishion et al., 2010). However, innocent teens are not routinely corrupted by deviant friends.

Generally, friends encourage socially desirable behaviours (Berndt & Murphy, 2002), such as playing sports, studying, quitting smoking, or applying to college or university. Peers are more helpful than harmful (Audrey et al., 2006; Nelson & DeBacker, 2008), especially in early adolescence, when biological and social stresses can be overwhelming. In later adolescence, teenagers are less susceptible to peer pressure, either positive or negative (Monahan et al., 2009).

Same Situation, Far Apart: Friends Together Teenagers in North America (left) and in Sudan (right) prefer to spend their free time with peers, not with adults. Generational loyalty is stronger during these years than during any other stage of life.

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Crowds and CliquesTo understand the role of peers, it is useful to examine how adolescents organize themselves. A cluster of close friends who are loyal to one another and who exclude outsiders is called a clique. A larger group of adolescents who share common interests is a crowd. Cliques and crowds provide control, guidance, and support via comments, exclusion, and admiration (B. Brown & Larson, 2009).

A crowd may exhibit small signs of identity (a certain brand of backpack, a particular greeting) that adults do not notice but that members of other crowds do (Strouse, 1999). Crowds may be based on some personal characteristic or activity—such as the “brains,” “jocks,” “skaters,” or “goths”—or they may be based on ethnicity. In large schools with many ethnic groups, ethnic crowds attract those who seek to avoid isolation while establishing their identity—a difficult process (Kiang et al., 2010). At the same time, students of all groups explore their relationships with other groups.

Crowds encourage certain values. For instance, one U.S. study found that “tough” and “alternative” crowds felt that teenagers should question every adult rule, whereas the “prep” crowd thought that parental authority was usually legitimate (Daddis, 2010). A study in Finland found that students with the highest grades were dismissive of those who devoted themselves to sports or those who were disaffected from school, who reciprocated by disliking the honours crowd (Laursen et al., 2010).

To further understand the impact of peers, two concepts are helpful: selection and facilitation. Teenagers select a clique whose values and interests they share, abandoning former friends who follow other paths. Peers then facilitate constructive or destructive behaviours. It is easier to do the right thing (“Let’s study together for the chem exam”) or the wrong thing (“Let’s all skip school on Friday”) if close friends are doing it, too.

Both selection and facilitation can work in any direction. One teenager joins a clique whose members smoke cigarettes and drink beer, and together they take the next step, perhaps sharing a joint. Another teenager chooses friends who enjoy math puzzles, and they might all enrol in calculus together. As one student explains,

Thus, adolescents select and then facilitate, choose and are chosen. Happy, energetic, and successful teens have close friends who themselves are high achievers, with no major emotional problems. The opposite also holds: Those who are drug users and alienated from school choose compatible friends and support one another in continuing on that path (Crosnoe & Needham, 2004; Kiuru et al., 2010).