The role of disclosing child sexual abuse on adolescent adjustment and revictimization

The role of disclosing child sexual abuse on adolescent survivors' symptomatology and the presence of additional unwanted sexual experiences was investigated in a subsample of 111 adolescents from the National Survey of Adolescents who reported child sexual abuse. Results indicated that prompt disclosure of sexual abuse to an adult moderated the influence of penetration during the abuse on the number of symptoms at assessment. Thus, prompt disclosure buffered the influence of more severe abuse. Disclosure also had a main effect on the likelihood of further victimization. Participants who told an adult promptly after the abuse were less likely to report additional unwanted sexual experiences.     

Reciprocal Effects Between Parental Solicitation, Parental Control, Adolescent Disclosure, and Adolescent Delinquency

This two-wave multi-informant study examined the bidirectional associations of parental control and solicitation with adolescent disclosure and delinquency. Participants were 289 adolescents (150 females and 139 males, modal age 14) and both parents. Parental solicitation and control did not predict adolescent delinquency, but adolescents' self-reported disclosure was a negative predictor of delinquency. In addition, delinquency predicted less disclosure. Furthermore, maternal solicitation predicted disclosure and adolescent disclosure predicted parental solicitation. All relations held after controlling for leisure time spent with parents and with peers. These longitudinal findings show an overlap in the development of parental solicitation and the development of adolescent disclosure, but also show that only adolescent disclosure is negatively related to delinquency over time.     

Factors Associated with Adolescents’ Disclosure of Sexual Abuse Experiences in Hong Kong

This research project is the first study conducted in Hong Kong using adolescent subjects to explore predictors of child sexual abuse disclosure. Eight-hundred male and female adolescents aged 13 to 16 years were recruited from the community while another 30 adolescents joined the study from a clinical setting. One hundred and seventy-seven adolescents acknowledged having a child sexual abuse experience. Results showed that the severity of sexual abuse activities and parent attachment were associated with disclosure in the clinical setting, while abuser’s gender and the adolescents’ disclosure tendency were associated with disclosure among participants in the community setting. Among the 104 participants who had disclosed their childhood sexual abuse, 70% of them had disclosed it within one month and 63% of them had disclosed to 2 to 5 people. The majority of the disclosers (81%) shared their child sexual abuse experience(s) with their friends. Participants from the clinical setting tended to reveal the experience more to adults than those from the community. The study suggested that when choosing a potential confidant, adolescents paid more attention to confidant characteristics than to anticipated confidant responses to their disclosure. Limitations and practical implications for increasing child sexual abuse disclosure rates are discussed.     

Youth Program Adult Leader's Directive Assistance and Autonomy Support and Development of Adolescents’ Agency Capacity

Developing a capacity for exercising agency is an important developmental task of adolescence. Many organized youth programs provide adolescents opportunities to build their capacity to exercise agency. The researchers tested hypotheses that adult youth program leader's directive assistance and autonomy support would promote adolescents’ capacity for agency. They surveyed 441 high school adolescents and 11 adult advisors from 10 Future Farmers of America chapters twice over 2 years. Adolescents self‐reported on their capacity for agency and advisors reported on each adolescent's capacity. Directive assistance and autonomy support correlated with the capacity for agency within both time points. Only autonomy support predicted adolescents’ capacity for agency over time. Implications of leader's support for adolescents’ capacity for exercising agency are discussed.     

Adolescent Socialization in Rural Appalachia: The Perspectives of Teens,Parents, and Significant Adults

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the social networks of Appalachian adolescents to understand socialization strategies and goals. A total of 46 interviews were conducted with five families (mothers, fathers, and adolescents) and 11 socialization agents the families identified as exerting significant influence in the lives of the adolescents. Interviews were transcribed and then analyzed using principles of grounded theory. Five themes developed from the interviews: the importance of community to the socialization process, adult involvement and support, adolescent monitoring, teaching respect and responsibility, and adolescent autonomy. Results suggest the need for in-depth investigation of adolescent development within a variety of cultural and social contexts to more fully understand these processes.     

The Adolescent Sexual Development of African American Gay Men with AIDS: Implications for Community-Based Practice

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study describes the adolescent sexual development of ten African American gay men living with AIDS. The informants retrospectively describe the challenges of being a gay adolescent in a mostly heterosexist and homophobic environment. They report unsupportive homophobic and heterosexist family members, community members and school officials. They also describe their burgeoning sexual orientation, sexual initiation as well as consensual and non-consensual sexual experiences with their peers. Additionally, several informants describe seeking sexual experiences with adult men. Later they suggest the adult men became their primary sources of emotional and psychological support. Implications for community practice, intervention and research with both African American gay adolescents and adult men living with AIDS are discussed.     

Absent Fathers as Providers: Race/Ethnic Differences in Support for Adolescent Mothers

Race/ethnic differences in the prevalence of and characteristics associated with low support provided by fathers of babies born to pregnant adolescents were examined among 719 adolescent mothers who were interviewed postpartum. Low support was reported by 41.9% of African-American, 26.2% of Mexican-American, and 19.4% of Caucasian adolescent mothers. Across race/ethnic subgroups, fathers who provided limited support were characterized by chronic substance use, gang or police involvement, or partner-directed violence. Policies advocating universal father involvement without concomitant programs designed to address their many needs may ultimately be detrimental to the welfare of mother and child.     

Role of the Father‐Adolescent Relationship in Shaping Adolescents’ Attitudes Toward Divorce

The quality of father‐adolescent relationships, especially for nontraditional fathers, has been neglected in investigating adolescents’ beliefs. Closeness of father‐adolescent relationships was examined as a predictor of adolescents’ attitudes toward divorce. A sample of European and African American adolescents (N = 300) reported on the quality of father‐adolescent relationships in 11th grade and their attitudes toward divorce at age 19. Boys who felt close to their biological custodial fathers, biological noncustodial fathers, and stepfathers felt less likely to divorce in the future than boys who did not feel close to their fathers. The same was not true for girls. Feeling close to a father—regardless of father type—is associated with boys’ confidence in the stability of their future marriages.     

Adolescent Transitions to Young Adulthood: Antecedents,Correlates, and Consequences of Adolescent Employment

The antecedents, correlates, and consequences of adolescent employment were investigated in a sample of 251 low‐income, African American youth that were followed since birth. The youth (age: M at preschool = 4.89, SD= .70; M at adolescence = 16.44, SD= .66; M at transition to adulthood = 19.36, SD= .76; and M at early adulthood = 27.67, SD= .75) were the firstborn children of African American teenage mothers who gave birth in Baltimore in the 1960s. Analyses examined the antecedents and correlates of age of entry into employment and stability of employment during adolescence. The associations of adolescent work experiences with subsequent adult education and employment outcomes also were considered. Findings indicate that among this sample of low‐income, African American youth, those who repeated a grade in school during middle childhood were more likely to enter the workforce at later ages than their peers who did not repeat a grade. The small subset of adolescents who never worked (n= 12) appear to be markedly more disadvantaged than their peers who worked. At the transition to adulthood, adolescents who entered the workforce earlier were more likely to complete high school than their peers. In addition, stable employment during the adolescent years had more beneficial effects on young men's chances of attending college than young women's postsecondary education. This pattern of findings is consistent with ethnographic accounts of adolescent employment among poor, minority, urban youth.     

Parent‐Adolescent Language Use and Relationships Among Immigrant Families With East Asian,Filipino, and Latin American Backgrounds

This study examined differences in the quality of relationships between immigrant parents and their adolescent children as a function of the languages with which they speak to one another. Over 620 adolescents with East Asian, Filipino, and Latin American backgrounds completed measures on parent‐adolescent language use and relationships. Adolescents who spoke in different languages with their parents reported less cohesion and discussion with their mothers and fathers than did their peers who spoke the same language with their parents. Adolescents who mutually communicated in the native language with their parents reported the highest levels of cohesion and discussion. Longitudinal analyses indicated that whereas language use did not predict differential changes in parent‐adolescent relationships over a 2‐year period, the quality of relationships did predict changes in language use. The associations between language use and relationships generally existed regardless of the families' ethnic and demographic backgrounds, and these associations did not vary across families of different backgrounds.     

Parental knowledge trajectory and its relationships with parental warmth and adolescent disclosure for Korean adolescents

The purpose of this study was to expand the knowledge base on parental knowledge by assessing a developmental trajectory and factors that might predict parental knowledge among Korean adolescents. To address this purpose, the current study assessed changes in parental knowledge during the transition to adolescence using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). In addition, parental warmth and adolescent disclosure were considered as time-variant predictors of knowledge. The data from Korea Youth Panel Survey (KYPS) of Grade 4 students who were followed for five years was analyzed. The results indicated that there was a significant average increase followed by a slight decrease in parental knowledge over time; that is, the data followed a quadratic trend. Controlling for gender and family structure, the study found that parental warmth and adolescent disclosure had significant effects on parental knowledge over time. The study's results suggest that parental warmth and adolescent disclosure are important elements to be emphasized in prevention and intervention programs that promote parental knowledge.     

Mexican American Adolescents' Emotional Support to the Family in Response to Parental Stress

In this two‐wave longitudinal, daily diary study that followed up with 421 Mexican American parent–adolescent dyads (adolescents: M_age = 15 years, 50% males) after 1 year, we investigated the contingency between parental stressors and adolescents' emotional support to family members. Adolescents provided support to their parents and other family members at similar rates, but adolescents were more likely to provide support to other family members than to their parents on days when parents experienced a family stressor. This pattern was especially pronounced in families with parents who reported physical symptoms and adolescents with a strong sense of family obligation. Adolescents' provision of emotional support was associated with same‐day feelings of role fulfillment, but not to their concurrent or long‐term psychological distress.     

Maternal Antecedents to Adolescent Girls’ Neural Regulation of Emotion

The purpose of this study was to investigate contributions of maternal emotional resources to individual differences in adolescents’ functional connectivity during emotion regulation. Participants included 35 adolescent girls who completed an implicit emotion regulation task during fMRI. Mothers reported on the quality of their adult attachment and emotional awareness when youth were in elementary school. Higher anxious attachment and lower emotional awareness were significantly correlated with more positive amygdala–right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex connectivity, a pattern linked in prior research with ineffective emotion regulation and emotional difficulties. Further, there was an indirect effect of anxious attachment on adolescent connectivity through emotional awareness. These results suggest that compromised maternal emotional resources in childhood may be linked to atypical neural processing of emotions.     

Incongruent Teen Pregnancy Attitudes,Coparenting Conflict,and Support Among Mexican‐Origin Adolescent Mothers

The current longitudinal study examined whether differences between Mexican‐origin adolescent mothers and their mother figures (N = 204 dyads) in attitudes on the status attained through teen pregnancy were associated with conflict in their coparenting relationship and whether coparenting conflict was associated with adolescent mothers' perceptions of social support. Findings revealed that when adolescents held more positive attitudes than their mother figures about the status gained through teen pregnancy, they tended to report greater coparenting conflict with their mother figures. Furthermore, greater coparenting conflict was significantly associated with decreases in adolescents' perceptions of social support (i.e., emotional, instrumental, companion support) 1 year later. Findings underscore the importance of incongruent attitudes and the quality of coparenting relationships between adolescent mothers and their mother figures in relation to support processes. Findings are discussed with respect to understanding Mexican‐origin adolescent mothers' social support in the context of family subsystem attitudes and interactions.     

Differences in Parental Monitoring Components and Their Associated Health Indicators Between Sexual-Minority and Heterosexual Girls

ABSTRACT

Our study sought to assess whether parental monitoring and their associations with health behaviors differed for heterosexual girls compared to sexual-minority girls (girls who identified as lesbian or bisexual, endorsed same-sex attraction, or had same-sex romantic or sexual partners). We analyzed three components of parental monitoring—adolescent disclosure, parental solicitation, and parental knowledge—between heterosexual and sexual-minority girls. We also tested if the associations between these three constructs and adolescent relationship abuse, suicidality, heavy drinking, binge drinking, anxiety symptoms, and depressive symptoms were different for heterosexual girls compared to sexual-minority girls. Sexual-minority girls were less likely to disclose accurately to their parents their location and activities and perceived their parents asked less and knew less about their location and activities than did heterosexual girls. Heterosexual girls who reported higher levels of adolescent disclosure were less likely than were sexual-minority girls to report suicidality and anxiety symptoms. Additionally, heterosexual girls who reported higher levels of parental knowledge were also less likely than were sexual-minority girls to report anxiety and depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that parental monitoring may not be as protective for sexual-minority girls as it is for heterosexual girls.     

Parent Marital Quality and the Parent–Adolescent Relationship: Effects on Adolescent and Young Adult Health Outcomes

Although a number of studies examined the implications of marital disruption for adolescent well-being, few studied the implications of marital relationship quality on health outcomes for children in married-couple families. The present study examines how parent marital quality among intact families interacts with the quality of parent–adolescent relationships to predict physical health, mental health, and substance use in middle adolescence and early adulthood. The study uses data from the NLSY97 cohort, a nationally representative sample of adolescents who are being followed into adulthood. Predictors include the quality of the parent marital relationship, the quality of the parent–adolescent relationship, marital structure, and a number of contextual covariates and control variables. Combined parent marital quality and parent–adolescent relationship groups were developed using latent class analyses and were used to predict positive and negative health behaviors during the teen and early adult years. Results indicate that adolescents in families experiencing poor marital quality fared worse on physical health, mental health, and substance use outcomes. In addition, adolescents who reported poor relationships with at least one of their parents fared worse on outcomes. Adolescents whose parents have low-quality relationships and also have poor parent–adolescent relationships tended to fare least well across health measures. Adolescents whose parents have a high-quality relationship and who have a good parent–adolescent relationship with both parents consistently had the best outcomes. Overall, poor relationships consistently undermine mental health, physical health, and substance use. Family religious activities also consistently predict better health outcomes.     

Social Capital, Savings, and Educational Performance of Orphaned Adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa

We examine the impact of social capital on savings and educational performance of orphaned adolescents participating in a family-level economic strengthening program in Uganda. Findings indicate that if given the opportunity, poor families in Uganda will use financial institutions to save for the education of their adolescent youth. Moreover, although the results are mixed, overall, adolescents with higher levels of social capital and social support, including participation in youth groups, are likely to report better saving performance compared to their counterparts with lower levels of social capital and social support. The results point to: (1) the role for family-economic strengthening programs specifically focused on improving the educational outcomes of orphaned adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa, and (2) the need for adolescents to be encouraged to participate in youth groups since these groups seem to offer the much needed supportive informal institutional structure for positive adolescent outcomes.     

Mother-Adolescent Communication in Low-Income,Latino Families during Language Brokering: Examining the Theory of Resilience and Relational Load

ABSTRACT

Low-English proficiency parents often have their bilingual children translate, called language brokering. Brokering can be stressful for low-income, Latino adolescents, who are already at-risk for depression. We tested the theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL) in a new context (in 100 low-income, Latino mother-adolescent dyads who engaged in language brokering) and extended TRRL by proposing security- and threat-based behaviors and appraisals can be represented by interaction goals. We examined mother warmth, mother brokering interaction goals of supporting and monitoring the adolescent, adolescent brokering feelings, and adolescent depressive symptoms. Mothers’ support goal was a protective factor against adolescent depression, but only when adolescents also inferred mothers pursued this goal. Adolescent positive brokering feelings were also a protective factor, as when positive feelings were high, the positive association between negative feelings and depression was not present. Findings supported TRRL propositions about relational maintenance, security-based goals, emotional reserves, and mental health.     

Parent and Stepparent Support and Psychological Control in Remarried Families and Adolescent Empathic Concern

Abstract

Using a symbolic interaction perspective, this study examined the extent to which (a) perceptions of parent/stepparent support were positively related to adolescent empathic concern and (b) perceptions of parent/stepparent psychological control mediated this relationship. Participants were a convenience sample of 72 ninth and tenth grade adolescents residing in remarried family households who completed self-report questionnaires. Results showed that adolescent girls in remarried family households who perceived their residential parent as more supportive reported greater empathic concern and that the relationship was mediated by perceptions of parent psychological control.     

Post-migratory milieu and the wellbeing of adolescent immigrants

Viewed from a psychoanalytic-developmental perspective, migration recaptures separation individuation conflicts and therefore may hinder or facilitate the personal development of adolescents. One of the factors that determine the outcome of migration in adolescents is the post-migratory milieu. The focus of this study is on an educational-residential program for unaccompanied adolescent immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel that provides a structured and supportive post-migratory milieu. The respondents were 573 students in the program, aged 14–18. They reported a lower level of psychological distress than that previously found among their peers who immigrated with their parents and were living in the community. Group support and positive relationships with surrogate parental figures were among the strongest predictors of psychological wellbeing. These results and implications of the study, beyond the specific program and setting, are discussed.