Parents Involvement In Adolescents Peer Relationships example essay topic

PARENTS' DIRECT INVOLVEMENT IN ADOLESCENTS' PEER RELATIONSHIPS One of the ways in which parents play a critical role in their sons' and daughters's ocial development is by encouraging their interactions with other youth; in this way parents provide opportunities for girls and boys to develop social cognitive and relationship formation skills (Ladd, Profile, & Hart, 1992). According to the model of parenting processes proposed by Parke and colleagues, parental influences on girls' and boys' peer relationships operate through two pathways: indirect socialization and direct involvement (Parke & Buriel, 1998). Models of indirect socialization, such as attachment and social learning perspectives, suggest that parents influence their children's peer interactions indirectly, through the more general influence of parent-child relationship experiences on children's social development and peer competence (e. g., Elicker, Englund, & Sroufe, 1992; MacDonald & Parke, 1984). Parents who are characterized as warm and accepting parents, for example, tend to have children who are more socially competent with peers (MacDonald & Parke, 1984). The focus of recent research, and of this investigation, is the second pathway, parents' direct efforts to guide their offspring's peer relationships, such as when they supervise peer interactions, engineer opportunities for their children to spend time with peers, and generally manage children's social lives (Ladd et al., 1992; Parke & Buriel, 1998). Studies of young children's peer relationships indicate that children benefit from more frequent and more positive interactions with peers and higher levels of social acceptance when parents are involved in those relationships (Bhavnagri & Parke, 1991; Ladd & Goiter, 1988; Loll is, Ross, & Tate, 1992).

Considerably less is known about parents' direct involvement in adolescents' peer relationships. The nature of parents' involvement in their children's social relationships may differ dramatically across developmental periods. For example, during early childhood parents directly intervene in and supervise children's peer interactions, whereas in middle childhood, parents may use a less intrusive approach such as encouraging friendships and monitoring social activities (Rubin & Sloan, 1984). With the exception of the literature on the connections between parental monitoring and deviant peer influences (e. g., Patterson, DeBaryshe, & Ramsey, 1989; Steinberg, 1986), we know little about parents' direct role in adolescents' friendship and peer relationships (for exceptions, see recent conference proceedings, McCoy, 1996; Mounts & McCoy, 1999).

The first goal of this investigation was to describe and compare mothers' versus fathers' direct involvement in adolescents' peer relationships. Our choice of measures was guided by Parke and colleagues' model of parenting (Parke & Buriel, 1998), which describes parents' direct involvement as encompassing a variety of roles including instructional activities (e. g., advice giving, support, and encouragement) and the 'management and provision of opportunities' (i. e., monitoring social activities, arranging contacts, spending time with adolescents and their peers). Specifically, we included three indices of parents' direct involvement: (a) parents' reports of their peer-oriented activities (e. g., initiating conversations with adolescents about their friendships, talking to the parents of their adolescents' friends); (b) parents' time spent in the company of adolescent offspring and their peers (e. g., chauffeuring adolescents and their friends to activities, attending sporting events with adolescents and their friends); and (c) parents' monitoring of (i. e., knowledge about) their adolescents' peer experiences (e. g., conflicts with peers, special activities with friends). Unlike previous studies of parental monitoring, which have assessed parents' and adolescents' perceptions of parents' general knowledge about their sons' and daughters' whereabouts, activities, and companions (e. g., Steinberg, 1986), we focused specifically on parents' knowledge of daily experiences with peers. Considering both mothers' and fathers' direct involvement was an important goal of this study because virtually no information is available on fathers' roles in adolescents' peer relationships. Studies of peer involvement with younger children suggest that mothers are more involved than fathers (e. g., Bhavnagri & Parke, 1991; Ladd & Go lter, 1988).

It is possible that a similar pattern will be found in adolescence to the extent that encouraging and monitoring adolescents' peer-oriented activities is akin to the caregiving responsibilities that more commonly characterize mothers' family and parenting roles (Collins & Russell, 1991). A second possibility is that fathers, who are more likely to participate in leisure than in care taking activities with their offspring (Collins & Russell, 1991), will assume a more active role than mothers, particularly when the focus is on spending time with adolescents and their peers (e. g., attending sporting events, participating in extracurricular activities). Many studies of parents' involvement in their sons' and daughters' peer relationships, and of parenting more generally, have focused primarily on how parents shape their children's social experiences (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). It is also important to take into account 'child effects,' or characteristics of children, that may elicit different responses from their parents (Bell & Harper, 1977). In this study, we considered the possibility that having a son versus a daughter may alter the nature of parents' involvement in adolescents' peer relationships. Socialization models highlight parents' role in socializing their same-sex offspring (Huston, 1983), particularly during the transition to adolescence (Crouter, Make, & McHale, 1995).

This perspective leads to the prediction that mothers will take a special interest in their daughters' friendships, whereas fathers will focus on their sons' peer interactions. This pattern may be especially pronounced for mothers with daughters, given research suggesting that social relationships are a traditionally feminine domain of socialization (Ruble & Martin, 1998). LINKS BETWEEN PARENTS' DIRECT INVOLVEMENT AND ADOLESCENTS' PEER EXPERIENCES The second goal of this study was to examine whether mothers' and fathers' direct peer involvement predicted the qualities of adolescents' friendship and peer experiences. Lack of attention in earlier research to parental influences on adolescents' peer relations is understandable in light of the 'two social worlds' view of parents and peers as separate and competing socialization influences (Bogenscheider, Wu, Raffaello, & T say, 1999; Cooper & Cooper, 1992), a view that was evident in the early and influential work of Bronfenbrenner (1970) and Coleman (1961) and in psychoanalytic models of development (Freud, 1958). Together, these early perspectives imply that parents have limited influence on their sons' and daughters's ocial experiences outside of the family once girls and boys reach adolescence (Bogenscheider et al., 1999).

Recent theoretical and empirical work contends, in contrast, that experiences with parents play an important role in peer relationships throughout adolescence. There is evidence, for example, that security of mother-child attachment predicts young adolescents' peer competence and friendship quality (e. g., Elicker et al., 1992), that family communication patterns are related to adolescents' friendship identity (Cooper & Cooper, 1992), and that parenting styles correspond with peer crowd affiliation (e. g., Brown & Huang, 1995). Although these sets of studies differ in their theoretical approaches (e. g., attachment theory, individuation-connectedness model), they all provide evidence of what Parke and colleagues have termed indirect socialization influences (i. e., links between the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship and adolescents' peer experiences). In this study, we examined whether mothers' and fathers' direct involvement explained unique variance in the qualities of adolescents' friendship and peer experiences, after taking into account such indirect socialization effects (conceptualized in this study as parents' reports of warmth-acceptance). Preliminary evidence points to positive associations between parents' involvement and the qualities of adolescents' friendships (McCoy, 1996; Vernberg, Beery, Ewell, & Abw ender, 1993). Vernberg et al. examined mothers' friendship facilitation strategies in families that had recently relocated and found that mothers's trategies were positively related to adolescents' friendship development.

Our study builds on the growing interest in this family dynamic by examining the links between mothers' and fathers' direct involvement and the qualities of adolescents' friendship and peer experiences more generally and by exploring the potentially unique contributions of mothers' versus fathers' direct involvement. Although fathers tend to be less involved than mothers, it has been proposed that fathers-who are more likely than mothers to encourage autonomy and independence from the family and to treat adolescents in a 'peer-like manner' (Shulman & Klein, 1993) -may play a unique role in facilitating peer relationships, particularly during adolescence (Parke & Buriel, 1998). In sum, this study had two goals: (a) to compare mothers' versus fathers' direct involvement in their sons' and daughters' peer relationships; and (b) to explore the links between mothers' and fathers' direct involvement and the qualities of girls' and boys' friendships (i. e., intimacy, negativity, and involvement with a best friend) and peer group experiences (i. e., perceived peer competence, peer group involvement). With regard to the second goal, because we anticipated potentially different links between parents' involvement and girls' versus boys' peer-related experiences, the regression analyses were conducted separately for girls and boys. Several studies of family-peer linkages using this analytic approach have demonstrated gender differences in patterns of association between parents' interaction styles and children's and adolescents' peer experiences (e. g., Isley, O'Neil, & Parke, 1996; Monte mayor, 1982). In addition, based on the theoretical importance of same-sex parents in the socialization process (Huston, 1983), we anticipated differences in the relative importance of mothers' versus fathers' direct involvement for girls versus boys.

METHOD Participants Participants were mothers (mean age = 39.81 years), fathers (mean age = 41.81 years), and firstborn adolescents (mean age = 15 years) from 197 working- and middle-class families. These families were participants in the first phase of a short-term longitudinal study of parents' work experiences, family relationships, and a adolescent development (Crouter, Bump us, Maguire, & McHale, 1999; McHale, Updegraff, Tucker, & Crouter, 2000). Recruitment letters were sent home to families of students in 18 school districts in a northeastern state; parents returned a postcard to express their interest in the project. Eligible families included non divorced couples with an oldest child in the 8th, 9th, or 10th grade at the onset of the study. In addition, because the larger goals of the study were to examine the effects of parents' work experiences on family dynamics, all fathers were employed full-time, and all but two mothers worked at least part-time for pay. Nine families were excluded from the present analyses because, despite the initial screening procedures, they failed to meet at least one of the criteria for participation, and one additional family was excluded because of missing data; thus, the present analyses included 187 families.

Of these families, 89 had firstborn girls, and 98 had firstborn boys. Reflecting the demographic characteristics of the region, families were predominantly White (98%) and from middle- and working-class backgrounds. Mean education for mothers and fathers was 14.39 years (SD = 2.12) and 14.29 years (SD = 2.32), respectively, representing an average of 2 years of education beyond high school. More than half of the families (57%) had two children, 32% had three children, and the remainder included four or more children; the average family size was 4.58 (SD = 0.81). Procedures Family members participated in a home interview and a series of evening phone calls. During home interviews, which lasted approximately 2 hours, mothers, fathers, and adolescents were interviewed separately.

In the present study, we used parents' reports of background characteristics and their ratings of peer-oriented activities and adolescents' reports of their friendship experiences and peer competence. In the 2 to 3 weeks following the home visit, each family participated in seven evening phone calls (five weekdays, two weekend days) designed to collect information about daily home and personal activities (excluding school and work activities). Adolescents participated in all seven calls, and mothers and fathers each completed four phone calls. Using a cued-recall strategy (McHale, Crouter, & Bartk o, 1992), information was collected on family members' involvement in 63 daily activities, including how long each event lasted (in minutes) and who else participated (e. g., friends, mothers, fathers). Activities included leisure events, household tasks, and personal-social activities (e. g., do homework, eat a meal). From these data, indices of the time each parent spent in activities with their adolescent and his or her friends were calculated.

In addition, proportion scores representing adolescents' involvement with a best friend and with peers in general were calculated from the phone data. A final series of questions asked during the phone interviews was designed to measure mothers' and fathers' knowledge about their sons' or daughters' daily experiences with peers; these questions represented a subset of a larger set of items assessing parents' knowledge about adolescents' activities, whereabouts, and companions (Crouter, Helms-Erikson, Updegraff, & McHale, 1999). This measure of parents' knowledge differs from other measures, which typically assess adolescents' or parents' perceptions of parents' knowledge about adolescents' activities. Instead, we asked identical questions of parents and adolescents about adolescents' peer experiences that day and then matched the answers to calculate agreement.

Using this approach, we were able to determine the accuracy of parents' knowledge about adolescents' peer experiences. Measures Parents' warmth-acceptance. Mothers and fathers completed the 24-item Warmth / Acceptance sub scale of the parent version of the Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (Schwarz, Barton-Henry, & Pruzinsky, 1985). Higher scores on this summed scale reflect greater warmth. Alphas were. 91 and.

94 for mothers and fathers, respectively. Parents' involvement in adolescents' peer relationships. As noted, we included three measures of parents' direct involvement in adolescents' peer relationships. Mothers and fathers (separately) completed a four-item Likert-type scale designed to assess their 'peer-oriented activities' (e. g., 'I spend time talking with my son / daughter about his / her friends'; 'I talk to the parents of his / her friends').

Items were averaged to create the scale score, with higher scores indicating more peer-oriented activities. Factor analyses conducted separately on mothers' and fathers' reports indicated that the scale represented a single underlying construct; Cronbach's alphas were. 75 for both mothers' and fathers' reports. 'Parents' knowledge' about adolescents' peer experiences was indexed by a four-item sub scale from the measure of parents' knowledge about their adolescents' everyday whereabouts, companions, and activities (see Crouter et al., 1999).

Parents and adolescents were asked a series of questions and follow-up probes regarding adolescents' daily experiences with peers. The questions were counterbalanced for mothers and fathers and were asked in different sequences over the four phone calls so that parents could not prepare for the questions ahead of time. Parents received a score of 2 if their entire answer matched that of the adolescent, a score of 1 if their initial answer matched but the answer to the probe did not, and a score of 0 if there was no match. The scores across the four items were averaged and converted to percentages to indicate the percentage of agreement between parents and adolescents; high scores indicated that parents were highly knowledgeable about their adolescents' peer experiences. To assess inter rater reliability, coders and coding supervisors independently scored parent-adolescent matches in 100 phone interviews; inter rater agreement was 96.5%. 'Time spent with adolescents and their friends' was assessed by daily activity data collected during the phone interviews.

Specifically, the duration (in minutes) that adolescents reported spending with their mothers and one or more peers was aggregated across the seven phone calls to measure mothers' time with adolescents and their friends. A parallel measure was created for fathers' time with adolescents and their peers. Time that both parents spent together with adolescents and their peers (i. e., mother-father-adolescent-peer time or family-peer time) was not included in these variables because of our focus on the unique contributions of mothers' versus fathers' time with adolescents and their peers. We used adolescents' reports because youth participated in all seven phone calls, whereas parents only participated in four phone calls each. Correlations between parents' and adolescents' reports of parents' time with adolescents and their peers for the four phone calls in which they both participated were r = . 58, p