16.2 Relationships with Adults

Adolescence is often characterized as a period of waning adult influence, when children distance themselves from their elders. This picture is not always accurate. Adult influence is less immediate but no less important.

Parents

The fact that parent—adolescent relationships are pivotal does not mean that they are peaceful (Eisenberg et al., 2008; Laursen & Collins, 2009). 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.

Normally, conflict peaks in early adolescence, especially between mothers and daughters, usually in 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). Each generation misjudges the other: Parents think their offspring resent them more than they actually do, and adolescents imagine their parents want to dominate them more than they actually do (Sillars et al., 2010).

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Unspoken concerns need to be aired so both generations better understand each other. Imagine a parent seeing dirty socks on the floor. The parent might think that is a deliberate mark of adolescent disrespect and therefore react angrily. But perhaps the adolescent was merely distracted, oblivious to the parent’s desire for a neat house. If so, then the parent could merely sigh and put the socks in laundry.

Some bickering may indicate a healthy family, since close relationships almost always include conflict. The parent-child relationship usually improves with time. By age 18, many teenagers appreciate their parents more than they did at puberty (remembering that parents want the socks in the hamper), and many parents have adjusted to their child’s independence (allowing the adolescent to leave socks on the floor in his own room) (Masche, 2010). A study of modern Chinese American adolescents, exposed to clashing values (respect for elders versus adolescent autonomy), found that conflict was not necessarily problematic if communication was good (Juang et al., 2012).

You have already learned that authoritative parenting is usually best for children and that uninvolved parenting is worst. [Lifespan Link: Parenting styles were discussed in Chapter 10.] The same holds true in adolescence. Although teenagers sometimes say their parents are irrelevant, that is not true. Neglect is always destructive and authoritarian parenting can boomerang, resulting in children who lie, leave, or learn to deceive their parents.

Expectations vary by culture, as do justifications (Brown & Bakken, 2011). For example, in Chile, adolescents usually obey their parents, but if they do something their parents might not like, they keep it secret (Darling et al., 2008). By contrast, many U.S. adolescents deliberately provoke an argument by boldly announcing what they think is permissible, even if it is something they themselves would not do (Cumsille et al., 2010). Filipino adolescents expect autonomy in daily choices but not in life goals: Parental advice is sought and usually followed in the four aspects of identity explained earlier (Russel et al., 2010).

Several researchers have compared parent—child relationships in Hong Kong, the United States, and Australia. Although these areas exemplify many cultural differences in assumptions about parental roles, in all three places, parent—child communication and encouragement benefit teenagers, reducing depression, suicide, and low self-esteem and increasing aspirations and achievements (e.g., Kwok & Shek, 2010; Leung et al., 2010; Qin et al., 2009).

Yet culture also has an impact, as demonstrated in a study of pubescent Hong Kong students who were proficient in both Chinese and English (they spoke Chinese with their parents, but their education was in English) (Wang et al., 2010).

In this study, bilingual researchers asked questions in English to half the children and in Chinese to the other half. All the children replied, in the language the questioner used, about their memories, self-concept, and values. Coders judged the children’s answers as being either about themselves alone (such as “I enjoy books,” “My eyes are dark”) or about themselves as one of a group or as a person connected to others (such as “I am a student,” “My family loves me”), and tallied the social descriptors.

Especially in early adolescence, descriptions in Chinese were more social while descriptions in English were more individualistic. It was not the words themselves that influenced the children, of course, but rather the ideological framework evoked when a researcher spoke English or Chinese (e.g., Hong Kong’s centuries of British heritage or the millennia of mainland Chinese culture). The researchers interpreted these results to mean that adolescents are strongly influenced by their culture, thinking as well as talking as the culture expects.

A Study in Contrasts? These two teenagers appear to be opposites: one yelling at his mother and the other conscientiously helping his father. However, adolescent moods can change in a flash, especially with parents. Later in the day, these two might switch roles.

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KATHRIN ZIEGLER/GETTY IMAGES

More important than family conflict or individualism may be family closeness, which 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 social scientist doubts that the first two, communication and support, are helpful, perhaps essential, for healthy development. Patterns set in place during childhood continue, ideally buffering some of the turbulence of adolescence (Cleveland et al., 2005; Laursen & Collins, 2009). Regarding the next two, connectedness and control, consequences vary and observers differ in what they see. How do you react to this example, written by one of my students?

My student is grateful to her parents, but you might wonder whether teenage motherhood gave her parents too much control, requiring her dependence when she should have been seeking her own identity. Indeed, had they somehow allowed her to become pregnant, by permitting her to have time alone with a boy but not educating her about birth control?

An added complexity is that this young woman’s parents had emigrated from South America. Cultural expectations affect everyone’s responses, so her dependence may have been normative for her culture but not elsewhere. A longitudinal study of nonimmigrant adolescent mothers in the U. S. found that most (not all) fared best if their parents were supportive but did not take over child care (Borkowski et al., 2007). Whether this is true in other nations has not been reported.

A related issue is parental monitoring—that is, parental knowledge about each child’s whereabouts, activities, and companions. Many studies have shown that, when parental knowledge is the result of a warm, supportive relationship, adolescents are likely to become confident, well-educated adults, avoiding drugs and risky sex. But adolescents play an active role in their own monitoring: Some happily tell parents about their activities, whereas others are secretive (Vieno et al., 2009). Most disclose only part of the truth, selectively omitting things their parents would not approve of (Brown & Bakken, 2011).

Thus, monitoring may signify a mutual, close interaction (Kerr et al., 2010). However, monitoring may be harmful when it derives from suspicion instead of from a warm connection. Especially in early adolescence, if adolescents resist telling their parents much of anything, they are more likely to develop problems such as aggression against peers, law-breaking, and drug abuse (Laird et al., 2013).

Control is another aspect of parenting that can backfire. Adolescents expect parents to exert some control, especially over moral issues. However, overly restrictive and controlling parenting correlates with many adolescent problems, including depression (Brown & Bakken, 2011). Decreasing control over the years of adolescence is best, according to a longitudinal study of 12- to 14-year-olds in the suburbs of Chicago and Hong Kong. In both cultures, adolescents were given more autonomy over personal choices as they grew older; in both cultures increasing autonomy correlated with better emotional functioning (Qin et al., 2009).

A VIEW FROM SCIENCE

Parents, Genes, and Risks

Research on human development has many practical applications. This was evident in a longitudinal study (first mentioned in Chapter 1) of African American families in rural Georgia that involved 611 parents and their 11-year-olds (Brody et al., 2009). Half of them were assigned to the comparison group, with no special intervention. The other half were invited to seven two-hour training sessions. Groups were small, and leaders were well prepared and selected to be likely role models. Parents and their 11-year-olds were taught in two separate groups for an hour and then brought together.

The parents learned the following:

• The importance of being nurturing and involved
• The importance of conveying pride in being African American (called racial socialization)
• How monitoring and control benefit adolescents
• Why clear norms and expectations reduce substance use
• Strategies for communication about sex

The 11-year-olds learned the following:

• The importance of having household rules
• Adaptive behaviors when encountering racism
• The need for making plans for the future
• The differences between them and peers who use alcohol

Not Yet The risk score was a simple one point for each of the following : had drunk alcohol, had smoked marijuana, had had sex. As shown, most of the 11-year-olds had done none of these. By age 14, most had done one (usually had drunk beer or wine)—except for those at genetic risk who did not have the seven-session training. Some of them had done all three, and many had done at least two. As you see, for those youths without genetic risk, the usual parenting was no better or worse than the parenting that benefited from the special classes: The average 14-year-old in either group had tried only one risky behavior. But for those at genetic risk, the special program made a decided difference.

After that first hour, the parents and 11-year-olds were led in games, structured interactions, and modeling, designed to improve family communication and cohesion. Three years after the intervention, both the experimental and comparison groups were reassessed regarding sex and alcohol/drug activity. The results were disappointing: The intervention helped but not very much.

Then, four years after the study began, the researchers read new research that found heightened risks of depression, delinquency, and other problems for people with the short allele of the 5-HTTLPR gene. To see whether this applied to their African American teenagers, they collected and analyzed the DNA of 16-year-olds who had been, at age 11, in either the special training group or the comparison group. As Figure 16.3 shows, the training had virtually no impact on those with the long allele, but it had a major impact on those with the short one.

That 14 hours or fewer of training (some families skipped sessions) had an impact on genetically sensitive boys is amazing, given all the other influences surrounding these boys over the years. Apparently, since the parent—child relationship is crucial throughout adolescence, those seven sessions provided insights and connections that affected each vulnerable dyad from then on.

Other Adults

Parents are important to an adolescent, but so are many other adults. One of the admirable characteristics of most adolescents is that they know many people, sometimes seeking advice and help from neighbors, teachers, relatives and so on.

Impact is notable when an adult takes time to listen to a child. For many youths, the most patient advisors are family members—older siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents. Sometimes parents delegate a sibling (the adolescent’s aunt or uncle) to discuss taboo topics, such as sex or delinquency (Milardo, 2009). Links between teenagers and relatives are especially common in developing nations and among immigrant groups for two reasons: (1) Relatives often live together or nearby, and (2) cultural values make family central.

In addition, adults with no biological relationship to the young person can be significant (Chang et al., 2010; Scales et al., 2006). For instance, regarding the four arenas of identity development (religion, politics, vocation, gender), clergy can affect a young person’s faith, political leaders can mold values, school counselors can influence vocational aspirations, and adults in satisfying sexual relationships can be role models (Lerner & Steinberg, 2009). In addition, many adolescents admire celebrities—in sports, music, and film—and try to be like them.