Perceived parent-child relationships and early adolescents' orientation toward peers.

Abstract

This study examined the links between children's perceptions of the manner in which they and their parents adjust their relationships during early adolescence and early adolescents' orientation toward parents and peers. A sample of 1,771 children completed self-report questionnaires during the spring of their 6th and 7th grades. As predicted, early adolescents who believed their parents asserted and did not relax their power and restrictiveness were higher in an extreme form of peer orientation. Also as predicted, those who perceived few opportunities to be involved in decision making, as well as no increase in these opportunities, were higher in both extreme peer orientation and peer advice seeking. Discussion focuses on the importance for parent-child relationships to adjust to early adolescents' changing developmental needs, as well as the implications of early adolescent peer orientation for later development.

Parent Influences on Adolescent Peer Orientation and Substance Use: The Interface of Parenting Practices and Values

“…Regardless of the mechanisms whereby parental values influence adolescent outcomes, the tacit neglect of parental values in most studies may explain inconsistent findings and the low amount of variance accounted for by parenting variables during adolescence (Fuligni & Eccles, 1993;Lamborn et al, 1991). The assumption that adolescent outcomes like academic prowess, social skills, and sexual abstinence are valued equally by all parents results in findings that reflect accurately the sample as a whole, but may misrepresent the reality of the diverse parent population, some who highly value an outcome and some who do not.…”

“…One study reported an indirect effect of monitoring on substance use: Low parental monitoring increased the likelihood that adolescents associated with substance-using peers, which, in turn, encouraged substance use (Patterson, DeBaryshe, & Ramsey, 1989). In other studies, low parental monitoring was related to a peer orientation so extreme that 13-to 16-year-olds committed deviant acts (Barnes & Farrell, 1992) and sixth and seventh graders abandoned parental rules, schoolwork, and even their own talents to be popular with friends (Fuligni & Eccles, 1993).…”

Attachment and Autonomy During Adolescence

“…In contrast, self -reports of high levels of parental psychological control and low support for behavioral autonomy have been inversely linked to measures of competence, closeness and autonomy within peer relationships (Laible & Carlo, 2004 ;Lee & Bell, 2003 ;. One particularly consistent finding is that teens who view their parents as controlling and restrictive of autonomy are more highly oriented toward their peers and also more likely to associate with deviant peers (Fuligni & Eccles, 1993 ;Goldstein, DavisKean, & Eccles, 2005 ).…”

“…Studies often have revealed opposite conclusions, as well as complicated interactions between parents ' and adolescents ' gender, as suggested above. Studies have indicated, for example, that mother -daughter relationships become particularly disrupted and conflictual during adolescence (Buchanan et al, 1990 ;Holmbeck & Hill, 1991 ;Montemayor, 1982Montemayor, , 1986Smetana, 1988aSmetana, , 1989Smetana, Daddis, & Chuang, 2003 ), although other research has not supported this pattern (Hill & Holmbeck, 1986 ;Smetana, Yau, & Hanson, 1991 ;Papini et al, 1988 evidence that adolescent girls perceive higher levels of autonomy support from parents, and are granted more input into family decision making (Beyers & Goossens, 1999 ;Brown & Mann, 1990 ;Flanagan, 1990 ;Fuligni & Eccles, 1993 ;Holmbeck & O ' Donnell, 1991 ;Jacobs, Bennett, & Flanagan, 1993;Soenens et al, 2007 ). However, these differences may at least partially depend on the gender of the parent and on other family characteristics, such as cultural context and parental attitudes toward gender roles (Bumpus, Crouter, & McHale, 1998 ;Daddis & Smetana, 2005 ).…”

On the association between adolescent autonomy and psychosocial functioning: Examining decisional independence from a self-determination theory perspective.

“…As well, using several large and diverse samples of middle adolescents, Dornbusch and colleagues found independent decision making to be related to a maladaptive pattern of psychosocial functioning and to problem behavior in particular (Dornbusch et al, 1985;Dornbusch, Ritter, Mont-Reynaud & Chen, 1990). Finally, joint decision making was consistently associated with more adaptive functioning (Brown, Mounts, Lamborn & Steinberg, 1993;Fuligni & Eccles, 1993).…”