This study compared cognitive readiness for parenting in 171 pregnant adolescents, 48 nonpregnant adolescents, and 38 pregnant adults. The relations between cognitive readiness and parenting stress and behavior were also assessed. Results indicated that adolescents were less cognitiveiy prepared, experienced more stress in the parenting role, and were less adaptive in their parenting style than adult mothers. Finally, relations between cognitive readiness and parenting stress and maternal interactional style were found. Additional analyses controlling for multiple demographic factors suggested that demographic variables played a role in explaining age-related differences in cognitive readiness as well as the-relations between readiness to parent and parenting behavior. Cognitive readiness, however, had unique and differential explanatory power in predicting parenting stress.

This paper examines the parental, adolescent, and family system characteristics that place a family at risk for destructive parent-child relations in adolescence. It is based on a study of 62 families, all of which contained a youth (age 10-16) and 2 parents and were referred because of the adjustment problems of the adolescent. A 3-member team visited the family at home to administer a 3 1/2-hour battery of questionnaire, interview, and observation instruments. These included a measure of risk for destructive parent-child relations (the Adolescent-Abuse Inventory); the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist; a measure of the family as an interactional system (FACES); the Cornell Parent Behavior Description; and assessments of adolescent physical maturation, interparental conflict, cognitive functioning, life events (A-FILE), and demographic and socioeconomic factors. The results permit identification of families as high risk for destructive parent-child relations using the parental scores on the Adolescent-Abuse Inventory. The high-risk group tends to be "chaotic" and "enmeshed" (FACES), to include more stepparents, to be more punishing and less supportive (Cornell Parent Behavior Description), and to be more stressed by life changes (A-FILE). Adolescents in the high-risk families are characterized by significantly more developmental problems (both internalizing and externalizing), and the number of such problems correlates significantly with the risk for destructive parent-child relations. The development of adolescent psychopathology appears to interact with the evolution of a high-risk family system to produce destructive relationships between parents and their adolescent offspring. Stepfamilies appear especially vulnerable to this dysfunctional evolution.

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A growing movement has emerged that promotes a strengths-based approach to research and social policy and seeks to counter the limitations of traditional deficits-based orientations. We refer to this as a "movement" in the sense that it is an unorganized collection of groups that share a common worldview and are generally moving in the same direction. This movement encompasses researchers, advocates, and policymakers who have organized themselves around different issues such as resilience, health promotion, school reform, and community development and have developed different formal or informal organizational structures. Table 1.1 briefly contrasts the focuses of deficits-based approaches with those of strengths-based alternatives in 10 content areas.The specific rationale, terminology, and strengths-based approaches emerging in these areas vary, reflecting in part the different types of deficits models that have traditionally influenced each (see column 1 of Table 1.1). The common element across content areas is that they transform deficitsbased approaches to ones based on strengths, as shown in column 2 of Table

Research evidence that has accumulated over the past 2 decades from several academic disciplines has catalyzed a strengths-based approach to understanding individual, family, and community development. In the past, research and policy development typically emphasized the individual vulnerabilities, deficits, pathology, deviance, or risk factors associated with negative outcomes for children or families. In contrast, a strengths-based approach seeks to illuminate and understand the individual and environmental characteristics and protective processes that create and support positive developmental outcomes. The need for broader, more integrated theories of individual, family, and community development has also pushed researchers to collaborate across disciplines and to consider the linkages among viable communities, well-functioning families, and individual well-being.A strengths-based approach to research and policy is based on the recognition that there is substantial variation in the adjustment of individuals, 13