Housing costs and child functioning: Processes through investments and financial strains

This study used family investment and family stress theories to illuminate mechanisms through which housing costs may affect low-income children's psychosocial and cognitive functioning. Using longitudinal data from the Three City Study (N = 1898), path analyses found support for the investment perspective, with housing and neighborhood contexts mediating associations between higher housing costs and greater behavioral functioning and academic skills. These benefits of higher housing costs were somewhat offset by negative direct associations with children's functioning, although these were not explained by financial strain. Results revealed that receipt of government housing assistance disrupted these pathways. Few differences in patterns emerged between young children and adolescents. Policy implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Neighborhood Qualification of the Association Between Parenting and Problem Behavior Trajectories Among Mexican‐Origin Father–Adolescent Dyads

To address the combined importance of fathers and neighborhoods for adolescent adjustment, we examined whether associations between fathers' parenting and adolescents' problem behaviors were qualified by neighborhood adversity. We captured both mainstream (e.g., authoritative) and alternative (e.g., no‐nonsense, reduced involvement) parenting styles and examined parenting and neighborhood effects on changes over time in problem behaviors among a sample of Mexican‐origin father–adolescent dyads (N = 462). Compared to their counterparts in low‐adversity neighborhoods, adolescents in high‐adversity neighborhoods experienced greater initial benefits from authoritative fathering, greater long‐term benefits from no‐nonsense fathering, and fewer costs associated with reduced involvement fathering. The combined influences of alternative paternal parenting styles and neighborhood adversity may set ethnic and racial minority adolescents on different developmental pathways to competence.     

Adolescent Problem Behavior in Toronto,Canada

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative association of unique aspects of social capital at the level of families, schools, and neighborhoods on adolescent self‐reported violence, property crimes, and substance use. Data come from the 2006 Canadian International Youth Survey that asked adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 in the metropolitan city of Toronto (N = 3, 101) about their problem behavior. Poisson regression models revealed that parental monitoring, school performance, peer approval of illegal activities, and neighborhood social disorder were consistently associated with all three adolescent problem behaviors, net of controls. Results were more mixed for remaining measures of social capital on adolescent problem behavior. Interestingly, neighborhood cohesion was a significant predictor of adolescent substance use, but operated in a direction that was contrary to the proposed hypotheses. These findings highlight the importance of teasing out how different facets of social capital in different environments are linked to adolescent problem behavior.     

Associations of Mothers' Friendship Quality with Adolescents' Friendship Quality and Emotional Adjustment

Little research has examined the association of parents' friendships with adolescent's well‐being, perhaps because the association was considered too distal. However, developmental theories suggest that contexts in which parents, but not their children, are situated may be related to child development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979 , 1986 ). The current work examined associations between the quality of mothers' own friendships and their adolescent children's friendship quality and emotional adjustment. Fifth‐, eighth‐, and eleventh‐graders (N = 172) whose mothers' friendships were characterized by conflict and antagonism reported having friendships that were high in negative friendship qualities as well as elevated internalizing symptoms. These associations held after controlling for mother–child relationship quality, suggesting that mothers' friendships may have a unique association with adolescents' adjustment.     

Parental Child‐Rearing Conflicts Through Adolescence: Trajectories and Associations With Child Characteristics and Externalizing Patterns

Research on longitudinal interparental conflict patterns and offspring development is scarce. The population‐based TOPP study (N = 459) was used to investigate (1) child‐rearing conflict trajectories through four time points during childhood and adolescence (ages 8–16), and (2) associations between conflict trajectories and child characteristics (i.e., birth order, gender, externalizing patterns from early childhood). Latent profile analysis identified six distinct trajectories. Conflict levels decreased for most respondents over the adolescent offspring period, but offspring's birth order and externalizing problems were related to less typical trajectories and higher levels of conflict. Onset of externalizing problems was of additional importance for the course of parental child‐rearing conflicts. The results highlight the perception of the whole family as an interwoven system.     

Adolescent Athletic Participation Patterns and Self‐Perceived Competence: Associations With Later Participation,Depressive Symptoms,and Health

Physical activity is important for well‐being across the life span. However, links between patterns of adolescent activity, competence perceptions, and young adult outcomes are underexplored. We used data from seven waves of the 4‐H Study of Positive Youth Development (N = 5,961) to assess patterns of adolescent athletic participation, whether these patterns were associated with self‐perceived athletic competence and young adult physical activity, depressive symptoms, and health, and associations between changes in participation across adolescence and young adult outcomes. Competence perceptions were associated with increased participation, and more active adolescents had higher rates of adult athletic activity, with links to better health and fewer depressive symptoms. We discuss results in light of the importance of using person‐centered analyses to understand active lifestyles.     

Capital at Home and at School: A Review and Synthesis

Human, financial, and social capital from several contexts affects child and adolescent well‐being. Families and schools are among the most important, and research is increasingly studying how effects of capital across such contexts affect child and adolescent academic and social outcomes. Some research suggests that families may be more powerful than schools in promoting child and adolescent well‐being. Additional research is needed to more fully understand how capital across institutions interacts in producing child well‐being, when and why multiple institutions or levels of analysis are relevant, and how several contexts can form chains of causation. Theories of social capital may promote increased conversation among researchers who study the same outcomes yet focus their analyses on different contexts.     

Residential Mobility and Adolescent Achievement and Behavior: Understanding Timing and Extent of Mobility

Residential mobility is generally viewed as an adverse event for adolescents' development. Less is known about whether moving during adolescence, childhood, or both periods explains this connection and whether the extent of mobility matters. Analytic shortcomings with much of the research call into question extant findings. We examined associations between childhood, adolescent, and child–adolescent mobility and adolescents' achievement (math and reading) and behavior problems (internalizing and externalizing). With a multisite, longitudinal sample (N = 1,056), we employed propensity score methods, which mitigate concerns about selection bias on observed variables, to investigate relationships. Results suggest that multiple, child–adolescent movers had more internalizing problems in adolescence than their stable peers, but did not differ on externalizing problems or achievement.     

Are They Listening? Parental Social Coaching and Parenting Emotional Climate Predict Adolescent Receptivity

Associations linking parenting emotional climate and quality of parental social coaching with young adolescents' receptivity to parental social coaching were examined (N = 80). Parenting emotional climate was assessed with adolescent‐reported parental warmth and hostility. Quality of parental social coaching (i.e., prosocial advice, benign framing) was assessed via parent‐report and behavioral observations during a parent–adolescent discussion about negative peer evaluation. An adolescent receptivity latent variable score was derived from observations of adolescents’ behavior during the discussion, change in adolescents’ peer response plan following the discussion, and adolescent‐reported tendency to seek social advice from the parent. Parenting climate moderated associations between coaching and receptivity: Higher quality coaching was associated with greater receptivity in the context of a more positive climate. Analyses suggested a stronger association between coaching and receptivity among younger compared to older adolescents.     

Indicators of Adolescent Depression and Relationship Progression in Emerging Adulthood

Adolescent depression may be associated with future relationship problems that have long‐term consequences given the developmental importance and health benefits of forming committed unions in emerging adulthood. The authors examined associations between emotional and behavioral indicators of adolescent depression (depressive symptoms, alcohol problems, and suicidal ideation) and romantic relationship and union formation and dissolution in emerging adulthood (n = 14,146) using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Adolescent alcohol problems were associated with more romantic relationships in emerging adulthood. Emerging adults with depressive symptoms or alcohol problems in adolescence were significantly more likely to enter into a cohabiting union, and those with adolescent alcohol problems were less likely to marry. Cohabiting emerging adults with a history of adolescent depressive symptoms were less likely to marry, whereas suicidal ideation was associated with a decreased likelihood of cohabitation dissolution. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Deviant Peer Behavior and Adolescent Delinquency: Protective Effects of Inhibitory Control,Planning, or Decision Making?

We examined relations between adolescent perceptions of deviant peer behavior and delinquency as moderated by inhibitory control, planning, and decision making in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development at age 15 (N = 991). Adolescents reported perceptions of deviant peer behavior. Inhibitory control, planning, and decision making were assessed behaviorally. Delinquency was evaluated with a latent variable comprised of parent‐guardian perceptions of adolescent delinquency and adolescent self‐reports. Only inhibitory control moderated the relationship between deviant peer behavior and delinquency, showing that better inhibition protected against delinquency in contexts of high levels of adolescent perceptions of deviant peer behavior. Findings are discussed in the context of theories of adolescent delinquency and risk taking.     

Social Capital and Adolescent Substance Use: The Role of Family,School, and Neighborhood Contexts

This study assesses the link between social capital factors of norm‐setting social arenas including family, school, and neighborhood and adolescent substance use measured by cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and illicit drug use among a sample of adolescents in California. The key messages of this study are that socialization processes at different life domains, in varying degrees, are associated with adolescent substance use behavior. Compared with school and neighborhood contexts, family is the most influential setting that should be primarily targeted for youth substance use prevention. Among different aspects of within‐family social resources, parental monitoring seems to be the most protective of adolescent substance use. Study implications on family‐based interventions are discussed.     

Early Adolescents' Development of Academic Self‐Concept and Intrinsic Task Value: The Role of Contextual Feedback

In this study, we investigate the extent to which achievement‐related feedback in two academic domains (mathematics and language) originating from two contexts (school and family) predicts early adolescents' domain‐specific academic self‐concept and intrinsic task values in Germany (N = 1,190, age range 10–13) and the United States (N = 1,953, age range 10–14). We examined the mediating role of both parents' competence perceptions and the early adolescents' academic self‐concepts linking grades and intrinsic value. Within‐ and cross‐domain effects were tested at each stage of the mediation. As predicted, in both countries the associations of grades with the academic self‐concepts are mediated by the parents' competence perceptions. The association of academic feedback with intrinsic task value is mediated through the students' academic self‐concepts.     

Neighborhood Poverty and Children's Academic Skills and Behavior in Early Elementary School

Neighborhoods provide resources that may affect children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes. However, it is unclear to what degree associations between neighborhood disadvantage and outcomes persist into elementary school and whether neighborhood disadvantage interacts with household disadvantage. Using data from the 2010–2011 Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Kindergarten Cohort (N = 15,100 children) merged with census data from the American Community Survey, this study examines associations between neighborhood poverty and children's math, reading, and behavioral outcomes at kindergarten and first and second grades. Findings indicate that as tract‐level poverty increases, children's achievement worsens after controlling for child and family characteristics. These associations persist into second grade and are stronger for children in poor versus nonpoor households. Findings suggest that neighborhood disadvantage may contribute to poorer achievement scores, particularly among children with few household resources, but that household disadvantage and other characteristics largely explain behavioral outcomes. Research and policy implications are discussed.     

Understanding Links Between Punitive Parenting and Adolescent Adjustment: The Relevance of Context and Reciprocal Associations

There is considerable debate regarding the extent to which punitive parenting adversely impacts youth well‐being. Using an ecological–transactional model of human development, we examined reciprocity and contextual variability in associations between maternal punitive discipline and adolescent adjustment among 1,147 low‐income, urban youth followed through adolescence. Longitudinal structural equation modeling results indicated that delinquency and depressive symptoms during pre‐ and early adolescence (Time 1) were associated with increased punitive discipline about a year later (Time 2). When mothers reported less Time 2 neighborhood disorder, punitive discipline at Time 2 was associated with increased delinquency (for boys) and depressive symptoms (for girls) during mid‐ to late adolescence (Time 3). The costs of punitive discipline for adolescent adjustment are best understood considering the dynamic, transactional, and contextual nature of development.     

Parents and Peers in Relation to Early Adolescent Problem Behavior

Concurrent and prospective associations between parent‐youth dyadic hostility and adolescent externalizing and internalizing problem behavior were examined in a sample of 416 families. Parenting control, parents’ well‐being, and youths’ affiliation with deviant peers were included as integral covariates. Information from multiple sources was analyzed using structural equation modeling. Concurrently, youth externalizing problems were associated with dyadic hostility, deviant peers, inadequate parenting control, and fathers’ well‐being (inversely). Internalizing problems were associated with inadequate parenting control and lower levels of fathers’ well‐being. Prospectively, some of these relations continued over 2 years, with a few new associations emerging. A process model is proposed in which parent‐youth dyadic hostility during early adolescence influences parenting, peer relations, and parents’ well‐being over time.     

YOUTH DEPRESSION AND FUTURE CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

While the contemporaneous association between mental health problems and criminal behavior has been explored in the literature, the long‐term consequences of such problems, depression in particular, have received much less attention. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the effect of depression during adolescence on the probability of engaging in a number of criminal behaviors later in life. In our analysis, we control for a rich set of individual‐, family‐, and neighborhood‐level factors to account for conditions that may be correlated with both childhood depression and adult criminality. One novelty in our approach is the estimation of school and sibling fixed effects models to account for unobserved heterogeneity at the neighborhood and family levels. Furthermore, we exploit the longitudinal nature of our data set to account for baseline differences in criminal behavior. The empirical estimates show that adolescents who suffer from depression face a substantially increased probability of engaging in property crime. We find little evidence that adolescent depression predicts the likelihood of engaging in violent crime or the selling of illicit drugs. Our estimates imply that the lower‐bound economic cost of property crime associated with adolescent depression is approximately 227 million dollars per year. (JEL I10, K42)     

Family Relationships and Adolescent Psychosocial Outcomes: Converging Findings From Eastern and Western Cultures

This study investigated the role of parent–adolescent relationships in mediating the association between family‐related negative life events and adolescent depressive symptoms and problem behaviors among 1,696 eleventh graders from the United States (n=201), China (n=502), Korea (n=497), and Czech Republic (n=496). Results indicated that perceived parental involvement and parent–adolescent conflict mediated the link between family‐related life events and adolescent depressed mood. The path from family‐related life events to adolescent problem behaviors was mediated by perceived parental involvement, parent–adolescent conflict, and perceived parental sanctions of adolescent misconduct. With the exception of minor cross‐cultural differences in the magnitude of associations among variables, this study revealed considerable similarity in the association of family factors with adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. The findings contribute to the growing literature on culture‐general developmental processes.     

Family Influences on Mexican American Adolescents’ Romantic Relationships: Moderation by Gender and Culture

This study examined prospective associations between the family context and adolescents’ romantic relationships as moderated by adolescents’ gender and culture among Mexican American families (N = 189). Adolescents at Time 1 (early adolescence) were on average 12.29 years of age (SD = 0.50) and 54% female. Mothers and fathers reported on family structure and dynamics during early adolescence, and youth reported on their romantic relationship involvement and quality during middle and late adolescence. Results from path analyses indicated that family structure and dynamics (supportive parenting, consistent discipline, and parent–adolescent and interparental conflict) were associated with adolescents’ romantic involvement and quality, and with differences by adolescents’ gender and culture. Findings highlight Mexican American family contexts that contribute uniquely to adolescents’ romantic relationships.