• Young teenagers were more likely to use some drugs (e-cigs, prescription drugs, inhalants) during the first year of the pandemic than before the pandemic.
• Teens with more pre-existing difficulties or in families with fewer resources used the most substances.
• Parents can support teens in avoiding drug use by modeling healthy coping behaviors and keeping connected to their children.

Teenagers and the COVID-19 pandemic

Teens’ lives changed a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many were attending school online, social distancing from friends and neighbors, and spending more time than they had before the pandemic with family. Many were dealing with stress, uncertainty, and depression. Did these changes result in different patterns of drinking and drug use?

Compared to before the pandemic, fewer teens reported using alcohol after the pandemic started. More teens said they used nicotine products (e.g., vaping), misused prescription drugs, or used inhalants after the start of the pandemic.

To find out, my colleagues and I repeatedly surveyed 9,270 teenagers from 11 to 13 years old across the United States who were participating in an ongoing study – the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. Teens completed one survey before the pandemic and seven more surveys during the first year of the pandemic (between May 2020 and May 2021).

How did teen substance use shift after the pandemic started?

Just like before the pandemic, the most common substances teens reported using were alcohol and nicotine (e.g., vaping). However, compared to before the pandemic, fewer teens reported using alcohol after the pandemic started. More teens said they used nicotine products (e.g., vaping), misused prescription drugs, or used inhalants after the start of the pandemic.

The pandemic appears to have shifted which substances young teenagers were using, away from alcohol and toward drugs. Since we surveyed only young teenagers (11- to 13-year-olds), our results do not address what changes the pandemic may have brought for older teens.

Photo: Wallpaper Flare.

What happened as the pandemic wore on?

Surprisingly, the decreases in alcohol use grew even larger in 2021, with teens continuing to report even lower rates. We expected that as teens’ lives began returning closer to their pre-pandemic routines, their alcohol use would also become closer to pre-pandemic levels – but instead we saw further decreases.

As the pandemic wore on, the increases in teens’ inhalant use and prescription drug misuse shrank but remained. In May 2021, young teenagers were still more likely to use these substances than they were before the pandemic. Furthermore, the increase in teens’ nicotine use (e.g., vaping) early in the pandemic (May 2020) shrunk over time and disappeared by May 2021.

Teens were less likely to use substances during the first year of the pandemic when their parents made an effort to stay connected with them and to keep track of what their teens were doing.

Larger impacts among families with fewer resources and youth with pre-existing difficulties

Was the early impact of the pandemic the same for all teenagers? No. Teens whose families had less income exhibited larger increases in substance use during the first year of the pandemic.

This probably occurred because families with lower incomes had fewer resources to buffer against stressful pandemic-related changes (e.g., a parent being laid off).

Also, teens who reported more behavior problems, depression, and anxiety before the pandemic tended to engage in more drinking and drug use during the first year of the pandemic. The additional stress brought by the pandemic likely increased the burden these teens were already feeling.

Parents can help by being a role model and connecting

Our surveys yielded some good news: There are ways parents might be able to protect teens from pandemic-related increases in drinking alcohol or using drugs.

First, teens’ substance use during the first year of the pandemic was correlated with parents’ substance use during that time. Therefore, parents who modelled healthy coping behaviors in the face of pandemic-related stress could have helped protect their teens.

Photo: ottawagraphics. Pixabay.

Second, teens were less likely to use substances during the first year of the pandemic when their parents made an effort to stay connected with them and to keep track of what their teens were doing (e.g., where they were, who their friends were, what was going on at school). When parents increased how much they were keeping track of their teens, youth’s substance use decreased substantially.

Next steps

We are continuing to survey the same teenagers to see how their substance use changed as the pandemic continued in 2022 and 2023. For now, we recommend that parents support their teens by staying connected, keeping track of teens’ activities, and being a role model for healthy coping with the stressful life changes brought by the pandemic.

The post Teenage drinking and drug use during the COVID-19 pandemic appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• The vast majority of adopted children are well-adjusted. Multiple studies over the past 25 years have found that as many as 9 out of 10 adopted children experience only minor difficulties in their adjustment compared to their peers who were not adopted.
• For the small percentage of adopted children who have significant emotional or behavioral problems, this is more often due to pre-adoption circumstances than to adoption itself.
• Adopted children are not destined to have adjustment problems. While they may experience turbulence and questioning at certain ages, this should not be confused with lasting disturbance.

Lessons from conversations about adoption

When someone I have just met asks what I do, I tell them I am a clinical psychologist. A common response is, “Oh, that must be interesting.” The next question is usually, “Do you have a specialty?” I reply that I work primarily with children and families and specialize in adoption.

What typically follows is a solemn look and in a lowered voice, “Oh, that must be hard!” This is often followed by a story of someone they know (or have heard about) who had a hard time with adoption.

People are usually surprised at what I say next: “Actually, my work is not as hard as you might think.” I add, “You probably don’t know that the vast majority of adopted kids are doing far better than people expect.”

Now either puzzlement or disbelief cross their face. But more often than not, I also see a flicker of curiosity. And many say something like, “I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.”

I assure them that they’re not alone in not knowing: “Most people don’t.”

The negative stereotypes and inaccurate assumptions that exist about adoption color perceptions of adopted children.

The public expects adopted children to be troubled

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has surveyed public attitudes toward adoption since 1997. Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, was adopted, and he was very invested in promoting adoption for children in need of stable and loving families.

The surveys consistently show that while support for adoption is high, there is a persistent expectation that adopted children have emotional and behavioral difficulties.

This is not a surprise to most adopted children and teenagers. They often encounter comments and opinions that convey doubt that they could be healthy and thriving. As one ten-year-old adopted boy said, “It is not adoption that is a problem. It is what everyone thinks about it.”

I agree with him. I have been working with adoptive families and closely following adoption research for 40 years. I have also done some of that research.

The negative stereotypes of adopted children

The negative stereotypes and inaccurate assumptions about adoption color perceptions of adopted children. They can have an unfortunate impact on children, their adoptive families, and their birth families (or first families, as some prefer to say). While family ties of adopted children and youth are more complex than those of children and youth raised by two biological parents, they are navigated successfully far more often than not.

Factors that contribute to negative misperceptions of adoption

What we have learned about what it takes for adopted children to thrive during childhood has changed dramatically over the 40 years since I worked with my first adoptive family. It changed as developmental researchers took a different approach to learning about adoption in the 1980s.

Until that time, most professional writing about adoption focused on adopted people who were struggling or in distress, people who had gone into therapy or returned to their adoption agency to address their questions and difficulties. Many of those patients were adults. Some struggled with aspects of their adoption while growing up. For some, their therapist may have suggested that adoption was a source of trauma. In those days, professionals, not just the public, assumed that adoption was always a liability.

Photo: RDNE Stock project. Pexels.

The societal beliefs around adoption

Another feature of that era was secrecy and shame about adoption. Societal beliefs made it more likely that adoption would be a difficult and isolating experience growing up. Adoptive parents were routinely advised to either not tell their children they were adopted or wait until their children were “old enough to understand.” Given that telling is difficult and these instructions were vague, adoptive parents often postponed communicating this information. For those children and youth who were told, some were warned not to share the information with others for fear of stereotyping and stigma.

Sometimes people discovered they were adopted on their own, which left them feeling understandably betrayed and confused. Experiences like these were among the retrospective accounts of adoption gathered in treatment settings. They shaped mental health providers’ understanding of adoption.

Because adoption is a theme that intrigues people almost universally, it has also been the subject of movies, television shows, books, and magazine articles. These portrayals, typically fictionalized and dramatized for entertainment value, also influenced public views of adoption.

Developmental psychology’s shift to a scientific approach to study adoption

In the 1980s, some developmental psychologists began to wonder whether the research on adoption represented too narrow a slice of the adoption experience to provide a thorough understanding. When one is focused on adoption, it is easy to overlook the reality that the lives of most children include challenges as well as opportunities, losses as well as enrichment.

Three questions guided a new, more scientific approach to learning about adoption:

• What can be learned from the experiences of all the adopted children who never entered into treatment?
• What might be learned from adoptive families directly about how their children did during childhood?
• How are children and youth who joined their families through adoption doing compared to non-adopted kids growing up in the same or similar communities?

In this new work, adoptive and non-adoptive families completed the same questionnaires and interviews for direct comparison. This work:

• Provided a broader picture of the adoption experience by recruiting community-based (versus clinical) samples;
• Looked at adoption in real time, rather than in hindsight;
• Relied on information provided by members of adoptive families (mostly parents), rather than professional sources (e.g., therapists), and
• Put adoption into the context of other life experiences, rather than singling it out.

While adoption is complex, it does not predestine a young person to have emotional or behavioral problems.

Looking at adoption through this new lens, what did the research show?

The picture that emerged from this new research was quite different from what many mental health providers had described in their accounts of treatment with adoptees. In these community-based research studies, the vast majority of adopted children functioned in the typical range. Differences between the groups of adopted and non-adopted children were not large.

Findings from this new approach broadened our understanding of adoption. It did not look as problematic as many had believed. This led to some heated disagreements, even between experts, over which picture of adoption really captured the truth.

In the late 1990s, Jeffrey Haugaard, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, reviewed adoption research to address this controversy. Haugaard concluded that being adopted did not in and of itself create adjustment difficulties. As others have, he found small differences in adjustment between adopted children and their non-adopted peers. This did not mean that there were no adopted children with significant struggles – in fact, a very small group had more extreme difficulties. But this group was estimated to be as small as 1 in 10 adopted children, with 9 out of 10 adjusting well and functioning typically.

Haugaard concluded, “There may be a risk of increased behavior or adjustment problems for some adopted children, or for adopted children at certain ages, but this risk is neither high nor widespread.”

Research has continued to confirm that most adopted children are well-adjusted

In the 25 years since Haugaard did his work, research has become more sophisticated. Only 2% of U.S. children under age 18 are adopted, and small study samples can lead to less reliable findings. Two approaches have helped researchers address this problem: 1) using data from national samples that include information about family background, and 2) meta-analysis, which combines results from several studies to expand the sample size and form more robust conclusions.

In an example of the first approach, a large national study of adolescent health and well-being in the United States compared three groups of teenagers who varied in their family makeup. Results showed little difference between adopted teenagers who were living with two adoptive parents and teenagers living with two biological parents. Interestingly, teens whose parents had divorced (and were living with only one biological parent in either step- or single-parent households) had far greater adjustment problems than the other two groups.

Photo: Pavel Danilyuk. Pexels.

These findings are a powerful reminder that while adoption is complex, it does not predestine a young person to have emotional or behavioral problems. Even during adolescence, which most people assume will be the most turbulent time, adopted teenagers have not stood out as a subset with greater difficulties. Children may face other challenges and adjustments as they grow up, such as parents’ divorce, that create greater disruption.

In an example of the second approach, a meta-analysis of adoption outcomes based on 85 studies from around the world confirmed what Haugaard speculated 18 years earlier. The meta-analysis concluded that “most adoptees could be expected to be in the normal range of psychological function and should not be pathologized.” Other large and comprehensive studies have also arrived at conclusions that normalize, more than pathologize, adoption.

How to eliminate false perceptions of adoption through research and accurate messaging

Our understanding of adoption has grown and diversified as researchers have studied different questions and used more rigorous methods. We now have more accurate and generalizable answers, and we know that adopted children are not as troubled as many people expect them to be.

If adopted children and teenagers are not that different from their non-adopted peers, why does adoption get singled out as a source of turbulence during childhood and adolescence? An astute commentary about how adoption is depicted in popular culture made this point: “Negative attitudes and misgivings toward adoption are so ingrained in pop culture that they’re almost invisible.”

Photo: Gabe Pierce. Unsplash.

Along even starker lines, the author of a column published in The Atlantic recounted how the phrase “You’re adopted” as an insult has “enjoyed continued popularity online as a retort or rejection.” The sometimes-subtle and sometimes-blatant derogatory representations of adoption contribute to stubborn and inaccurate assumptions that adoption is associated with disruption.

With the prevalence of negative representations of adoption, the psychological principle of confirmation bias becomes relevant to understanding how inaccurate assumptions about adopted children’s adjustment and well-being persist. Confirmation bias predicts that individuals are more likely to remember stories that confirm what they already believe to be true.

In this case, the belief so frequently reinforced is that adopted children as a group are more troubled or have more problems than their peers who are not adopted. I believe this is why the conversations I described earlier unfolded as they did. This is why remembering, and sharing, the evidence that 9 out of 10 adopted children experience positive outcomes is so important.

The post Do adopted children inevitably struggle? appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Parents, peers, and schools all represent crucial influences that shape how white¹ adolescents make sense of racism and their actions toward social justice.
• Having explicit conversations with white youth about racism and embedding children in racially diverse environments that acknowledge race are essential to countering the dominant color-blind narrative that race “doesn’t matter.”
• Conversations about race with white youth must go beyond simply acknowledging historical and contemporary racism toward encouraging anti-racist attitudes and actions to address inequities.

Children receive messages about race and color-blindness from multiple sources

There is no “neutral” in racism. All youth learn to either reinforce or disrupt systems of inequality that uphold and maintain a racist status quo. As such, shielding white children from learning about race and the United States’ racist history encourages a way of knowing that is untethered to the country’s racial realities and further sustains white supremacy and racism.

Contrary to the color-blind narrative that positions racism as a thing of the past and “everyone as equal,” racism is embedded in structural forces (e.g., law, institutions, housing) and continues to shape all people’s experiences (though differently). The color-blind narrative is pervasive among white parents and caregivers and within predominantly white institutions (including school settings). For instance, only 53% of white parents believe schools should teach about the ongoing effects of slavery and racism in the United States, while 82% of Black parents hold this belief.

For white youth, social environments that counter the color-blind narrative and instead address racism may be integral to fostering social justice action.

Regardless of whether children receive explicit messaging about race, they interpret the various experiences, interactions, and (un)intentional messages in their lives. Parents, peers, and schools are three interrelated influences that shape how children make sense of race during adolescence. For white youth, social environments that counter the color-blind narrative and instead address racism may be integral to fostering social justice action.

What social contexts about race and racism do white adolescents in the United States experience?

In our research study, we examined the myriad influences that shape how white youth make sense of racism and the resulting impacts on their social justice behaviors. We used survey data from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study to examine 323 white adolescents’ racial environments (i.e., the social contexts that may shape their beliefs and attitudes about race and racism), with particular attention to conversations with parents about race and racial attitudes, cross-race friendships, and conversations with peers about race.

We also looked at the diversity of youth’s schools with respect to racial composition and curriculum. We then explored how these different racial environments during adolescence (16-17 years old) related to white youth’s social justice actions two years later in young adulthood. All participants in the study lived in a racially and socioeconomically diverse county in the Eastern United States.

Photo: cottonbro studio. Pexels.

The racial environments of most adolescents (80%) were characterized by silence or passivity about race. Such environments align with a color-blind narrative in which racism is downplayed or ignored, limiting white adolescents’ ability to disrupt and challenge racism. However, the racial environments of some adolescents (20%) were more race conscious, meaning that race-related conversations occurred more frequently, schools were racially diverse and acknowledged race and racism in the curriculum, and adolescents had cross-race friendships.

How did different racial environments affect white adolescents’ social justice action?

White adolescents in race-conscious environments were engaged in more social justice behaviors during young adulthood than were white adolescents in racial environments characterized by silence. These behaviors included participating in civil rights or women’s rights groups. Our findings suggest that when white youth are in environments that are racially diverse and that acknowledge race and racism, they are more likely to take action in young adulthood to promote and foster social justice.

How can parents foster social justice attitudes and behaviors in their white children?

The findings of our study, in conjunction with other recent findings, challenge the often-espoused color-blind belief that not talking about race promotes equity. Instead, they suggest that having explicit conversations about racism and inequality, and embedding children in environments (e.g., schools) that are racially diverse or conscious of racism, can foster white adolescents’ reflection and actions toward creating and maintaining equitable social conditions for all people.

How can parents and caregivers foster a race-conscious environment for white youth?

First, parents and caregivers of white children should reflect about their own racial attitudes and beliefs. As we saw in our study, even parents who believed they had “positive” racial attitudes may foster a color-blind racial environment for their children.

Parents and caregivers must talk early and often with their white children about racism.

Thus, parents should challenge themselves to think critically about race in the United States and how their own racial identity relates to the ongoing perpetuation or disruption of racism. Numerous resources are available to prompt such critical reflection, including engaging with the works (e.g., film, books, art) of authors and artists of color that portray the racial realities of the United States.

Second, after such reflection, parents and caregivers must talk early and often with their white children about racism. For instance, when children bring up or notice race, parents should discuss what their child is noticing rather than silence them or communicate that noticing race is bad.

Building white adolescents’ skills

Discussing race and racism, celebrating and recognizing the contributions of people of color (which are often excluded from mainstream narratives), addressing racialized police killings and violence, and reflecting on the history and current manifestations of white supremacy are integral to building white adolescents’ skills for anti-racism work and for actively communicating the racial realities of the United States. (See EmbraceRace raising young white allies for more resources.)

Finally, the results of our study highlight the multidimensional nature of children’s racial environments. In other words, it is not just parents who play a role in how children make sense of racism, but rather a multitude of influences, including but not limited to peers and school. As such, fostering white youth’s social justice behaviors means embedding children in racially diverse environments in which cross-race friendships can form and where school curricula acknowledge and affirm people of color.

Photo: Ron Lach. Pexels.

White parents and caregivers can also promote change in their children’s schools by standing with parents of color as allies and teaching their children to stand up against racism. Parents can also support candidates in local and national elections who recognize the importance of discussing racism in educational settings. (Read more information on the debate about critical race theory in schools here.)

In conclusion – racial justice requires reckoning with whiteness and countering narratives

The take-home message is that reaching a state of racial justice requires reckoning with whiteness and countering the pervasive color-blind narratives that produce false and inaccurate understandings of racism in the United States. In particular, our study demonstrates how race-conscious environments can counter the racist status quo by building white youth’s efforts for social justice. Our findings also underscore the role of white parents and caregivers in ensuring that the next generation strives for an equitable and anti-racist society.

¹ Although the style of the Child & Family Blog is to capitalize ‘White,’ the authors have intentionally not capitalized the word when it refers to skin color. For information supporting this rule, please see The Associated Press.

The post Fostering Social Justice: White Adolescents’ Social Justice Action Requires Race Conscious Environments appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Building healthy relationships with technology involves not only protecting youth, but also supporting their positive experiences online.
• Helping middle schoolers navigate the digital world involves strategies similar to those used for their in-person activities: monitoring, spending time on the internet together when possible, educating them about risks, and communicating.
• Ongoing communication is critical. Talk about your values and expectations, ask what young users are doing online, and listen to how they feel about those experiences.
• Parents cannot do it alone. Digital technology companies and policymakers need to ensure that the online spaces where young people spend their time support healthy development while also keeping them safe.

Protecting and supporting youth on the internet are both important

Parents often ask what they can do to protect their children online. This is a good question. But another important question that should be asked is how can we better support our youth on the internet?

As mothers to tweens and teens, we are always looking for ways to protect our children from harm. One of us is also a developmental psychologist who has studied adolescents’ mental health for more than two decades, learning that we need to both protect and support our children – particularly around the middle school years as they make the transition to adolescence and into online spaces.

This is why we recently released a report on what research tells us about amplifying the benefits of digital technology for this age group and calling on technology companies and policymakers to adopt an evidence-based approach to protecting and supporting youth. But even as we urge technology creators to do better, there are steps parents and other caregivers can take to both protect and support positive digital technology use for young people.

Promoting healthy development and well-being with positive online experiences

Early adolescence (from about 10 to 13 years old, or the middle school years) is an important window when positive experiences that support learning and connection can affect development. Going on the internet to create, contribute, or connect can be a positive experience for young people. Online experiences offer new spaces for adolescents to express their creativity, explore who they are and where they fit in, support causes they care about and connect with peers in ways that can enhance their relationships.

Co-viewing, creating, and participating in online spaces can open opportunities for positive joint experiences and allow parents to identify any risks or content that makes them uncomfortable.

Encouraging these kinds of positive experiences online does not require an entirely new set of parenting skills. Instead, parents can use strategies similar to those used when children walk out the door to go to school or hang out at the park with their friends. Parents cannot be everywhere or see everything. But they can find out who their children are with, what they are doing, and how they feel about it, which can reduce problems. This kind of monitoring and communication can also help youth as they navigate the online world.

Keeping youth safe on the internet

Parents should consider some critical issues to ensure their children are engaging with online content safely. During early adolescence, when youth are particularly sensitive to social feedback and belonging, increased exposure to bullying, pornography, unhealthy body images, and harmful targeted advertising can have amplified effects.

Parents should also be aware that some adolescents, for example, those with mental health problems and those who may already be struggling with body image issues, may be more susceptible to viewing negative content on the internet and having negative online experiences than their peers. Knowing your child is key.

Caregivers should also understand that technology use also leaves a digital trace that can follow young people into adulthood by creating a type of permanent record of images and comments that would otherwise be forgotten or excused due to age and immaturity.

Moreover, sleep is critical to physical health, mental health, and learning during adolescence, so families should limit late-night technology use that gets in the way of youth getting more than eight hours of uninterrupted sleep each night.

Photo: Andrea Piacquadio. Pexels.

How parents and caregivers can support and protect youth by making the internet a safer place

Parents and caregivers can make the internet a safer place by:

1. Monitoring and being aware
2. Going on the internet together when possible
3. Educating young people
4. Communicating with young people
5. Using helpful resources

1. Monitoring and being aware

Unlike physical places youth may go that are out of parents’ sight, digital technology provides opportunities to monitor where youth have been online, ideally with youths’ knowledge and consent. Parental controls – such as content filters, time limits, and applications that allow monitoring of online activities – can help.

2. Going on the internet together when possible

Viewing, creating, and participating in online spaces together can open opportunities for positive joint experiences and allow parents to identify risks or content that makes them uncomfortable.

3. Educating young people

Parents can explain the potential risks of digital technology use, discussing the importance of keeping personal information safe and of moderating screen time to make room for in-person activities. Developing a family media plan with your child can help start a conversation about the types of activities and platforms children are allowed to spend time on, and will allow young adolescents to have input into any rules that may govern their use.

4. Communicating with young people

Talking to your child about what they are seeing or experiencing on the internet should become part of daily conversations. When youth are exposed to age-inappropriate content or encounter problematic experiences like cyberbullying or social rejection, having an adult to talk to can make a difference. (Common Sense Media offers prompts to start talking, from conversations about activities to more specific concerns about emotional health and negative feelings.)

5. Using helpful resources

Parents and teachers can access a growing list of resources to help support children online, including:

• The One Mind PsyberGuide provides a teen-specific guide to online mental health applications.
• Common Sense Media resources support parents navigating traditional and new forms of media engagement.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics has a guide to creating a family media plan.
• Teens and Tech Center provides education and resources for parents, educators, and teenagers.

Designing technology to support young people

Even with parents’ best efforts, it is impossible to oversee children’s every online interaction. As parents, we have limited influence over how our children’s data are handled and stored, the types of targeted advertising they are exposed to, and the features intended to encourage them to stay on the internet for long periods of time.

Talking to your child about what they are seeing or experiencing online should become part of your daily conversations.

We expect that the physical spaces where our children spend time, like community parks, sports fields, and classrooms, help them grow and learn while keeping them safe. Digital spaces should be the same. Some lawmakers are working toward this.

For example, last year, California passed a bill that will require digital technology companies to protect young users’ privacy and personal data, limit dangerous content, and maintain default settings that prioritize safety. New York is considering similar legislation. While changes that would enhance safety are important, companies and policies must also consider regulations and design features that intentionally promote positive development in online spaces where youth congregate.

What do caregivers need to know about equitable access to digital technology?

Research is clear that children in families and schools with fewer resources receive less guidance tailored to learning as they begin to navigate the online world than do their peers in families and schools with more resources. Adolescents from minoritized and marginalized communities – such as youth of color and LGBTQ+ youth – are at the greatest risk for experiencing harassment and victimization online, even as they report positive experiences like finding “spaces of refuge” and community on the internet that may not be available to them in their physical environments.

Although discussion of technology tends to focus on limiting screen time, too many students are unable to access the basic benefits of technology, particularly for learning and education. Black and Hispanic students and those from families with lower incomes are more likely to have limited access to devices and the Internet than their peers.

Photo: Omar Ramadan. Pexels.

To help address these gaps, many school districts are working to provide free or reduced-cost WiFi to students. Families who need help to afford reliable Internet access and connected devices can contact their local school district or apply for the Affordable Connectivity Program.

In addition, digital technology companies and policymakers need to establish digital solutions and innovations that make the online world a place of opportunity rather than posing added risks for our most vulnerable youth.

Conclusion

Early adolescence brings new opportunities for building connections, education, and healthy learning and exploration. If we focus the conversation around “teens and tech” only on protection, we may miss opportunities to meet young people where they are and build online environments that match their needs.

Parents and caregivers have an important role in helping our children develop a healthy relationship with digital technologies. That includes talking directly with them about potential risks of online interactions and how to moderate digital technology use, providing oversight where possible to see what children are doing on the internet, and setting limits to ensure that technology does not interfere with sleep and other activities important to well-being. Most importantly, it means building strong relationships with our children so they tell us what is going on and when they are struggling.

But we cannot do this on our own. It is time for the owners, designers, and creators of the online spaces where young people spend their time to step up and build environments that support young people while also keeping them safe. We need to ask different types of questions so we learn not just how to protect but also how to support our children’s healthy development in an increasingly digital world.

The post Making the internet safer, engaging and evidence-based for tweens appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Puberty is not a singular process, so girls’ feelings about each change will not be uniform. Parents can celebrate changes their daughters are excited about while also making space for negative feelings about other changes.
• Girls who feel more prepared for menarche are less distressed by it. Parents can engage in multiple conversations with their daughters about practical information in handling menstruation, and also the feelings, physical pain, and social stigma associated with the change.
• Girls who mature earlier than their peers seem to struggle to make sense of these changes in a way that increases their psychological distress. Parents can model how to draw helpful conclusions from the changes happening in girls’ lives to support their daughters’ emotional development.

Puberty is often viewed as an awkward transition for both parents and their daughters

In the first episode of My So-Called Life (a mid-1990s U.S. television series about the teen years), teenager Angela laments that “My dad and I used to be pretty tight. The sad truth is, my breasts have come between us.” Many parents and adolescents can relate to this sentiment.

Puberty brings with it many dramatic changes that are exciting and difficult, public and private, and dramatic and subtle for youth. When faced with these changes in their child, many parents may not know exactly what to say, so they defer to outside sources like physicians.

Parents should talk with their daughters to see how they feel about specific changes.

Since puberty is broadly considered the start of adolescence, it can be tempting to view the first major pubertal change as a cue that your daughter needs space and privacy because she will soon be a moody teenager. It is important that parents do not avoid such topics just because they are awkward. In fact, researchers have found that youth prefer their parents as their source for sensitive topics like sex education over other sources such as school, peers, or media.

But where should parents start when talking to their daughters about puberty? And how can they better help girls make sense of the changes happening to them? One way to answer these questions is to ask girls themselves how they feel about puberty.

What views about puberty do girls express when asked to write about the experience?

In a recent study, my co-author and I asked 10- to 13-year-old girls to describe their experiences of changes with their bodies, families, and friends during puberty. Over four consecutive days, girls wrote in journals for 20 minutes on a specific prompt related to change during puberty. After the four days of journaling, they responded to survey questions about their level of symptoms of depression, conflict with peers, and conflict with parents. They completed the same survey about four months later.

Girls may view puberty as both a positive and a negative experience

While puberty often carries negative connotations in pop culture, we found that writing about most physical changes, including breast development, was not related to negative outcomes in mood or relationship conflict. In their journaling, girls tended to voice multiple perspectives on the same issues.

Photo: Zen Chung. Pexels.

For example, when writing about relationship changes with youth their own age, one girl said she felt that her “relationship with kids my age did not really change, we just have our ups and downs sometimes.” In contrast, another girl wrote, “I have noticed that you can’t just be friends with boys. Other people, apparently, think you are dating if you hang with a boy. This makes friendships with boys extremely hard.”

Based on these findings, parents should talk with their daughters to see how they feel about specific changes rather than assuming which changes girls view positively or negatively.

Menstruation is uniquely stressful for girls; talking to them about it can help

In our study, girls were most distressed by menstruation. Girls who wrote about menstruation more than any other topic were more likely to report more symptoms of depression four months after the first survey, regardless of their level of physical development or the timing of puberty.

This is important because it means that girls did not simply write about menstruation because they experienced it and other girls did not, but that some girls fixated on menstruation in a way that may be maladaptive.

Menstruation is a unique change. In addition to being private and beginning all at once rather than gradually, it is a change that has monthly consequences for most girls that continue until menopause. Many girls wrote about feelings of isolation or helplessness around the idea of experiencing period pain or inconvenience for years to come. For example, one girl summed up this feeling by writing, “One of the only things I am not looking forward to during puberty while growing up is cramps.”

In our study, girls were most distressed by menstruation.

Given these findings, parents should talk through these feelings with girls and provide information about handling menstruation before girls begin menstruating. Researchers have found that girls who are well-informed about menstruation are less likely to be distressed by it. This may be because girls can replace misinformation or fears (e.g., “I will hurt all the time and I can’t stop it.”) with accurate information and potential solutions (e.g., “I can take pain medications for cramps.”).

Parents can help teens view puberty as a meaningful life transition

In addition to examining girls’ thoughts and feelings about individual changes, we also recorded each time girls demonstrated meaning making by searching for meaning or trying to make sense of the changes happening to them.

Sometimes this took on a negative tone when girls reflected on their helplessness (e.g., “Puberty is just something that happens to you and you have to go through it. It’s life.”). Other times, girls reflected on how changes in their lives might benefit them or others (e.g., “Going through puberty now means I’ll be better prepared to help my daughters in the future.”).

The more early-maturing girls engaged in making meaning, the more symptoms of depression they reported. Girls who mature earlier than their peers may struggle with meaning making that is positive or constructive, or at least that does not exacerbate psychological distress. This may be because early-maturing girls are among their first in their classes to start puberty, so they may have fewer examples or frames of reference to draw from when making sense of these changes.

Research with adults suggests that the more people engage in adaptive meaning making, the better their mood and well-being tend to be. However, children and adolescents tend to have a more difficult time generating such adaptive meaning making on their own. Adaptative meaning making may look like finding benefits in the situation, recognizing personal growth that has come out of the changes, or reappraising negative events in positive ways more generally. Parents can engage in scaffolding during conversations about changes or challenges with their children to help them practice better meaning making strategies.

Photo: Karolina Grabowska. Pexels.

For example, parents may follow up a daughter’s statement that “wearing a sports bra sucks” by reframing the conclusion (e.g., “It may suck that you have to wear an additional piece of equipment, but your sports bra is no different than your cleats or racket. It is equipment that helps you preform safely.”). Alternatively, parents may use questions to guide their teens to elaborate or reframe the concept on their own (e.g., “What does the sports bra help you accomplish?”).

Research directions

Overall, our research suggests that girls are particularly distressed by menstruation when describing their experiences of change during puberty. They may also struggle to make meaning of the changes and challenges related to puberty in a way that can help them cope with this transition.

While it can be difficult or awkward for parents to know what to say, our findings suggest that parents can support their daughters during puberty by engaging in more and frequent conversations about pubertal change. However, researchers need to examine how parents’ conversations about particular topics directly influence girls’ adaptive meaning making about pubertal changes.

We also need research to determine how these results apply to other groups’ experiences with puberty, such as boys and adolescents from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Adolescents from different backgrounds may focus on different experiences and concerns, and these may map differently onto teens’ psychological difficulties.

The post What is puberty like for girls? – Making sense of puberty appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Effective parenting involves being responsive to the child as well as exerting appropriate guidance.
• Achieving a balance between these two behavioral dimensions can be challenging and changes with the child’s development.

Introduction to Authoritative Parenting

One of the most important and enduring concepts in research on raising children is authoritative parenting. Coined in the late 1960s by the psychologist Diana Baumrind, this concept refers to a general style of or behavioral approach toward childrearing. The style is characterized by two fundamental features: exhibiting responsiveness and exerting control.

Although being responsive to children and providing discipline have long been recognized as key ingredients of effective parenting, prior to Baumrind’s work, the two dimensions were largely considered – and studied – separately. By combining the two areas into a single construct, she recognized that these characteristics need to occur together in parenting.

In her landmark monograph, Current Patterns of Parental Authority (1971), Baumrind provided evidence that children of authoritative parents tended to be more socially competent and have fewer behavioral problems than children of parents who used other childrearing styles.

Her conceptualization of what made mothers and fathers effective became highly influential and continues to be widely accepted worldwide as the ideal childrearing style. But as important and longstanding as the concept is, unanswered questions remain.

Photo: Kampus Production. Pexels.

What is authoritative parenting?

By definition, an authoritative parent has two behavioral dimensions. First, the adult is very responsive to their child (sometimes referred to as warmth, supportiveness, or nurturance). This responsiveness is oriented around nurturance with the goal of promoting self-regulation and encouraging self-assertion in children, and recognizing and accepting children’s individuality (Baumrind, 1991).

The second behavioral dimension is commonly labeled guidance (sometimes also called demandingness, control, or discipline) and refers to firmly enforcing rules of socialization and behavioral standards. The parent provides structure, predictability, limits, and accountability, usually through rules. The rules are appropriate to a child’s age and reflect high behavioral expectations, such as not allowing any forms of aggression.

The rules or guidelines for behavior are not arbitrary and may be informed by the child’s input: Authoritative parents engage in open, two-way communication with their children. They explain to their children, with clear reasons, why they have established the rules and expectations and consider their children’s input in the decision-making process. A hallmark of this parenting style is respecting the child as an individual.

Authoritative parents engage in open, two-way communication with their children.

However, ultimately, the parent makes the final decisions. Although not necessarily democratic, because parents maintain ultimate authority, in authoritative parenting, parents treat their children in a benevolent way by balancing these two behavioral dimensions.

From the child’s perspective, the parent is viewed as loving, open to discussion, and respectful. But the child also recognizes that their parent follows clear and firm behavioral guidelines, maintains high expectations, and sets definitions and boundaries regarding unacceptable behavior. The child also knows there will be consequences for transgressions, whether a verbal reprimand or punishment, such as taking away a favorite toy or a privilege.

Contrasting parenting styles

Perhaps the easiest way to recognize authoritative parents is to compare them with parents who use the three contrasting childrearing styles (although Baumrind identified only two of the three): authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved parenting.

An authoritarian (or autocratic) parent is just that – very controlling and demanding, and not very responsive. This type of parent expects immediate obedience and compliance, and does not provide explanations or take the child’s perspective into account.

Think of a Hollywood movie stereotype of a military drill sergeant who barks orders at his enlisted men and demands immediate, unquestioning compliance. In authoritarian parenting, reasons are not used to justify commands. This style is centered on the parent because the parent’s focus is on themselves and getting the child to obey, comply, and fit in.

In stark contrast to the authoritarian style is the permissive style (also called indulgent or non-directive), where the parent has few if any expectations of or limits on their child and in fact, allows the child free reign. Permissive parents do not expect mature behavior. They are very responsive and lenient, and they avoid conflict. The permissive style reflects an approach to childrearing that is centered on the child; the child is the boss and makes his or her own decisions. Dessert for dinner is okay with an extremely permissive parent.

In an influential chapter published in 1983, two psychologists, Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin, labeled Baumrind’s two central parenting dimensions as warmth and control to characterize different parenting styles. And they identified a fourth type of parenting: uninvolved.

The uninvolved parent (also called neglectful or detached) is not involved in parenting their child and consequently is neither warm nor controlling. Parents who are uninvolved may have a mental or physical health problem, be separated or divorced, lack interest in their child, be a workaholic, or live apart from their child.

Photo: Anastasia Shuraeva. Pexels.

Evidence for the beneficial effects of authoritative parenting

In 1966, Baumrind first described the three models of parental control. She followed that with research on preschool-aged children and their parents. Her most carefully documented study, of 146 White, middle-class preschool children and their parents in the United States (Baumrind, 1971), yielded somewhat mixed results. A close read of her research reveals that her findings are not as dramatic or clearcut as is portrayed in most textbooks.

Based on interviews with parents, questionnaires filled out by parents, and behavioral ratings of their children, she discovered that the daughters of authoritative parents (and a subsample of the boys) were more socially competent and independent, and achieved at higher levels in school, than were the children of authoritarian or permissive parents. Boys of authoritative parents were more socially responsible than sons of parents with other styles. The subtleties of Baumrind’s findings were often forgotten and the beneficial associations of authoritative parenting are overstated in most textbooks.

Prompted by these initial studies, many researchers began investigating the relation between parenting styles and children’s behavior. In virtually all cases, the studies relied on short self-report questionnaires to classify parents into a particular parenting style.

Despite taking less rigorous methodological approaches than Baumrind did in her work, the studies consistently found that authoritative parenting related positively to a variety of variables in children and adolescents. Among these variables are greater social competence, high academic performance and cognitive competence, and lower rates of emotional and behavioral problems (e.g., depression, low self-esteem, aggression) than found in children of either authoritarian or permissive parents.

Variables commonly studied in adolescents include academic performance, social psychosocial functioning, aggression, juvenile delinquency, and drug or alcohol problems. As in research with younger children, studies of puberty and adolescents have consistently found that authoritative parenting is related to better youth functioning (e.g., Lamborn et al., 1991; Steinberg et al., 1992).

Studies consistently found that authoritative parenting related positively to a variety of variables in children and adolescents.

More than 50 years after the concept of authoritative parenting first appeared, research on this style of childrearing continues. Since 2020, many studies have been published that link the style to a variety of positive characteristics. Among the findings: that authoritative parenting is related to prosocial behavior and more communication about sex-related topics; is associated with healthier diets in children; and protects against obesity, smoking and drinking, and mood disorders (e.g., depression) in children and youth.

This evidence is largely consistent both within and across cultures. For example, in the United States, authoritative parenting and academic achievement commonly co-occur, although there is some cultural variation. Similarly, despite minor regional variations, evidence from China, Russia, Pakistan, Spain, and many other countries is consistent: Authoritative parenting is associated with positive outcomes (Pinquart & Kauser, 2018).

The child’s role

One cautionary note concerns the role of the child. Researcher Catherine Lewis (1983) pointed out that Baumrind failed to account for the child’s role in eliciting parents’ behavior. She argued that competent children are more likely to bring about authoritative-type responses from their parents than are other children.

Picture a fatigued mother of a challenging child. She may need to be more controlling because her child is non-compliant. Or consider a father, tired of attempting to manage his son who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Although he might be viewed as a permissive parent, his prior childrearing practices likely made no substantive contribution to his son’s behavior.

In cross-sectional data about parenting styles, evidence about the child’s role suggests that parenting styles change with the age of the child. When children are younger, parents tend to be more controlling, but they become more permissive as their children grow older (e.g., Dornbusch et al., 1987).

Photo: Barbara Olsen. Pexels.

Some limitations of authoritative parenting

As important and influential as the idea of an authoritative parenting style is, it can be faulted as being too simplistic. It reflects a broad brushstroke that attempts to capture the complex landscape of a parenting style.

The reality is that childrearing changes as the situation or behavioral domain (e.g., pertaining to morality, social convention, safety) merits. And the question initially raised by Lewis (1981) – whether childrearing is affected primarily by the parenting style or the child’s effect on the adult’s behavior – has not been adequately investigated.

The nature of the evidence supporting the efficacy of the authoritative approach is also limited. For ethical and practical reasons, we lack true experimental evidence to definitively determine the effects of parenting styles. Instead, researchers rely on correlational evidence and, all too often, on short self-report questionnaires to classify parents.

We also know little about the psychological mechanisms involved. Why does authoritative parenting promote optimal development (see Larzelere, Morris, & Harrist, 2013)?

A second neglected topic relates to examining the challenging social cognition processes required to balance socialization expectations with a child’s needs for nurturance. For example, authoritative parents must decide when and where to set limits, in contrast to making allowances for special circumstances (e.g., a sick child, a child acting out because of attention given to a younger sibling).

Conclusion

Developmental psychologists and parenting experts now agree that effective parents should engage in a style known as authoritative childrearing, which involves being responsive to the child but also having high socialization behavioral expectations and exerting appropriate guidance.

This consensus is based on largely consistent though correlational findings, from over half a century of studies from many countries, that these parenting qualities result in competent and well-adjusted children and youth. Although the concept has some limitations and questions remain, the basic premise is widely accepted that authoritative childrearing contains two of the key ingredients of effective parenting: responsivity and guidance.

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Start with acknowledging and celebrating the diversity of Latinx families and communities

The past 20 years have seen dramatic shifts in the location of Latinx communities, stretching beyond traditional jurisdictions in California, Texas, and New York into areas that are much less familiar with their needs and cultures. Indeed, the label “Latinx” does not capture the diversity of Latinx-identifying families and individuals born and raised in the United States versus recent and earlier arrivals who hail from different countries of origin and heritages, and who are fluent in different Spanish dialects and indigenous languages. (Latinx is a gender-neutral term used in the United States to refer to Latino/Hispanic individuals of Latin American or Caribbean heritage.)

This diversity can sometimes overwhelm rigid and unfamiliar systems, which can contribute to frustration, confusion, and tensions in receiving communities. Correspondingly, fear and distrust among Latinx populations and between Latinx populations and other groups can escalate. What may actually be misinformation or confusion among Latinx parents can be internalized as failure. In reality, Latinx parents bring with them hope, optimism, a sense of family cohesion, and a strong work ethic, which are key strengths that support children’s success.

Three key strengths: Optimism, work ethic, and family cohesion

It is hard to overstate the optimism that Latinx immigrants have today and have always had when they arrive in the United States. They feel they have had to risk everything, leaving behind family and the life they knew to move to a better life, one filled with hope of economic opportunity and promise for their children’s futures. This optimism carries them through difficult times. Such positivity protects their well-being and mental health and drives success.

Service and public infrastructure such as transportation, internet access, and schools can be extended in ways that capitalize on co-location of community organizations and neighborhoods that parents trust.

Optimism is just one of many strengths Latinx families bring with them, whether they are born in the United States or are recent immigrants. Their capacities include a strong work ethic, with many Latinx parents working long hours and producing high-quality output, rarely missing work or calling in sick, often at the risk of losing earned income and with no mechanism for recourse in case of injury or emergency.

This strong work ethic goes hand in hand with an equally strong commitment to their children, ensuring that they receive proper nutrition and feel safe, and attending to their children’s learning and education. As in all families, Latinx parents balance the competing demands of being a worker and a parent, and ensure that their children get not only resources but also their time.

Family cohesion is the hallmark of adapting and thriving in the United States. Latinx families provide love and support for each other in the form of social and financial capital. The strong family bond can protect them from adversity and provides a personal safety net that helps the family not only survive, but in many cases, thrive. An integral part of the family is the belief that children thrive when raised by two parents—mothers and fathers.

Photo: David Beoulve. Creative Commons.

Fathers’ role is not only to provide financially for their children, but also to be there for them and be involved in day-to-day parenting. Latinx fathers have a strong commitment to their family and their children, and their involvement in their lives matters for the development of children’s basic language and social skills. Fathers and mothers also co-parent and combine resources to ensure that their children have more opportunities than they had. 

Celebrating learning and education

The value placed on education and learning is infused throughout stages of child development, as demonstrated during children’s earliest years. Both Latinx mothers and fathers engage in active storytelling which is sustained through support of formal schooling.

Investments in early education in the United States have yielded high enrollment in programs serving preschool-age Latinx children, and the benefits to Latinx children, including dual language learners, sometimes outpace those of other groups of  children. Families also benefit from the role early education and care play in supporting parenting, access to other resources in the community, and connections to social networks.

The strong Latino parent work ethic goes hand in hand with an equally strong commitment to their children. As in all families, Latinx parents balance the competing demands of being a worker and a parent, and ensure that their children get not only resources but also their time.

Indeed, Latinx fourth and fifth graders’ math and reading achievement has increased over time, as have Latinx high school graduation rates and subsequent enrolment in post-secondary education programs. When researchers visit Latinx homes, parents ask about where and how they can purchase the educational toys used to observe children’s play. It is not unusual for young children to ask their teachers for more books to bring home from school, declaring: “One is for me, and one is for Mom.” Modelling good behavior is a tool parents use to inculcate in their children a love of learning, with many parents “doing homework” with their children. Family members, and sometimes entire communities, come together to participate in and witness schooling milestones, such as graduations.

Educational preparedness for many Latinx children includes fluency in two languages, mastering English and Spanish. Schools that embrace equity-oriented practices – including strategies to facilitate family engagement and family-school partnerships, and extended learning opportunities – have reduced disparities in Latinx students’ school progress compared to peers.

A foundation of good health

Across many metrics of children’s health, Latinx children fare well, notably in low rates of infant mortality. Latinx parents care deeply about the health of their children and the foundation that good health provides for their children’s educational attainment and economic opportunities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Latinx families, like many other families, expressed concern about the social isolation and mental health of their children. They also experienced high rates of economic, food, and housing insecurities, which threatened the well-being of their children.

Yet their abilities to meet the physical and mental health needs of their children are often hindered by structural barriers to medical care, public services, and other resources needed to support children’s well-being. As one example, 12 states, many in the U.S. South, have chosen not to expand Medicaid, a health insurance program for low-income persons. Even with insurance, Latinx families can face a variety of barriers to care, including limited time off from work to obtain medical care, limited access to transportation, and a lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate services in the communities in which they live.

Pandemic challenges

Optimism can wear thin when families are faced with health risks and economic uncertainty over a prolonged period. During the first few months of the pandemic, the mental health of Latinx parents was initially buoyed by their optimism and strong co-parenting support, but high rates of unemployment, especially among Latina parents, reduced household income. Not all eligible Latinx families received pandemic-related government assistance.

Although most Latinx families did their best to keep children engaged in learning activities at home, Latinx children’s learning suffered because they did not receive the support they needed for education transmitted remotely or online. Latinx children did not have consistent access to technology or equipment, such as extra iPads or laptops. In some cases, children missed online testing because digitally accessible equipment, including a smart phone, was shared by an entire household. 

As Latinx parents struggled to cope with extra demands, Latinx teens and young adults were expected to help their younger siblings with learning.

Photo: Jhon David. Unsplash.

Opportunity for policy investment and the price of policy failure

These and other stories speak to Latinx family strengths. How can these strengths of optimism, work ethic, and family cohesion be harnessed – and not undermined – by investments in education, health care, and child care policy?

Latinx children arrive at formal schooling curious and eager to learn. Although Latinx children quickly catch up to their peers in some academic domains, lack of support for their home language and cultural barriers contribute to dashed hopes and disillusionment with educational opportunities. As economic pressures on the family, youth are forced to disengage from the educational system as they face competing demands, including working to financially support their family or sharing in the responsibility of raising younger siblings. This path can lead to lost years of formal education.

Child care providers have difficulty accommodating the complexities of work schedules among some Latinx parents, and early education and care arrangements are not always culturally responsive, lacking support for Spanish-speaking or dual-language parents and children and failing to adequately accommodate children with special needs. The supply of child care slots is low, resulting in fewer options to reconcile work and parenting commitments.

Many Latinx families with children are left out of health insurance because of discrimination against individuals whose immigration status is not regularized. Latina adolescents have some of the highest rates of depression and suicide attempts in the United States. Longer-term consequences are documented in poor cardiovascular health, diabetes, and suboptimal functioning in adulthood.

When family cohesion faces such stressors, how far can the safety net it provides its members be stretched before it snaps? It is hard to know precisely. Low-wage work is deeply problematic, setting tight limits on what parents can do for their children. When a mother works two or three jobs, who cares for her children? When can a mother or father engage with the school if they are both working long hours? When is there time to navigate the health care system?

How can parents ensure that child care is good? If work is unreliable and unstable, with no benefits and few hours required on short notice, children may have to be placed in three or four different child care arrangements. Typically, there is no formal child care on weekends, so low-paid Latinx families are forced into an informal network of supports, some of which are not of very high quality.

How do parents square the circle of wanting to spend loving time with their children and earning enough money to feed their family? One father we know works three jobs, getting home at 11 pm every night. His two-year-old naps until 10:30 pm, then is wakened so she can play with her father for half an hour – but she is tired the next day.

A manifesto for change

It is time for public programs and services to re-envision their engagement with Latinx families and support Latinx children’s paths to success. They must also respect the rights of Latinx individuals: Most young children of immigrants are U.S.-born, thus have rights and privileges equal to all other U.S. citizens such that their parents’ immigration status is not a barrier.

Service and public infrastructure more generally—including transportation, internet access and schools—can also be extended in ways that capitalize on co-location of community organizations and neighborhoods that parents trust. Community schools have proven their worth in, for example, improving access to children’s health care and reducing the administrative burden on hard-pressed parents of accessing other services.

Latinx families bring such strengths – so much energy, skill, and commitment – to raising their children well. A public commitment to policies and practices that harness and align with these strengths can go a long way to recouping returns to investments.

The post Investing in the strengths of Latinx families and children appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Why might Latina teenagers spend more time with family? We studied data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) between 2003 and 2019, and found that differences in household structure, family structure, youth’s work hours, parents’ education, parents’ work, and geographic region could not fully explain differences in time Latinos’/as’ time spent with family versus with peers.

“Extra time with family, especially for Latina youth, could be due to differences in attitudes and values related to familismo and marianismo.”

Instead, we believe the extra time with family, especially for Latina youth, could be due to differences in attitudes and values related to familismo and marianismo. Familismo attitudes place a high value on family closeness, cohesion, and reciprocity. Marianismo involves the belief that girls should be nurturing and self-sacrificing for family.

Extra time with family, especially for Latina youth, could also be both an asset and a constraint. Several studies show that when familismo is strong, there is likely to be less family conflict, lower adolescent-parent conflict, more tight-knit families, and fewer suicide attempts. Yet, extra time with family could be a constraint on Latino/a youth if familismo values such as spending time together are not shared between parents and children or if time with family is burdensome or overwhelming. Additionally, extra time with family could be detrimental if it entails saying no to opportunities outside the household, such as educational or extracurricular activities, or even going to college away from home.

Other findings from our research

In our analysis of the ATUS from 2003 to 2019, we examined daily family contact patterns –  the total daily minutes spent with both nuclear and extended family – among Latino/a 15- to 18 year-olds. For the sake of comparison, we also included Black and White youth of the same age. Opportunities for family time may depend on who lives in the household, so we focused on youth who had focal family members (e.g., siblings, grandparents) living in their households.

On average, Latino/a youth spent more time with their parents than did Black youth, and more time with siblings than did both White and Black youth. Latino boys spent less time with parents, but more time with siblings, than did White boys.

“It may be time to reconsider what we think of as a “typical” U.S. teenager who distances themselves from family.”

Our analysis yielded some unexpected results: We thought Latino/a youth in immigrant households would spend more time with family than Latino/a youth whose parents were born in the United States, yet we found no such differences. Latino boys in immigrant households did spend more time with siblings but also spent less time with household adult relatives than Latino boys in non-immigrant households. We also thought Latino/a youth might spend more time with extended family than their White and Black counterparts did, but we found few racial/ethnic differences in time with extended families among the three groups.

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They found that for most youth, rates of serious depression and anxiety were lower than rates in similar surveys before the pandemic, but rates did not decline for Hispanic and gender non-binary youth.

They also looked at how 10 potential drivers of mental health functioned overall and in different subgroups (defined by ethnicity, gender, and age).

The biggest influence on young people’s depression and anxiety during COVID-19, by a factor of 1.5-2, was how young people rated parent support, which was measured by two items: parents’ helpfulness in sorting out their feelings and low levels of stress caused by parents.

Many other studies have shown that COVID-19 has substantially increased levels of psychological disturbance among parents which, in turn, negatively affects parenting behaviors. On this basis, the main policy recommendation from Luthar and colleagues’ research is to ensure ongoing support for parents and other caregivers in times of crisis such as COVID-19. “Monitoring ongoing parent mental health and parenting needs, and intervening where appropriate, should be of high importance for public health efforts to promote child well-being,” the researchers suggest.

How the research was designed

The study included children and young people in middle and high school, that is, from 11 to 18 years  old. It took place during the first three months of COVID-19 in 2020 in the United States. Just over one third of the children were of color and just under one third lived in families that received financial aid.

“The biggest influence on young people’s depression and anxiety during COVID-19, by a factor of 1.5-2, was how young people rated parent support.”

The students were from 49 relatively high performing schools with high Standard Assessment Test scores – 40 independent/private day schools, 8 boarding schools and one public school. Previous research has shown that  students in these schools are at risk due to the very high pressures to achieve and the intense competition they face. At the same time, resilience studies indicate that findings on powerful risk and protective factors tend to generalize across different subgroups, meaning that the results from this study may have relevance beyond students in high-achieving schools.

The study asked students about 10 factors known from earlier research to influence mental health: (1) perceptions of parent support, (2) concerns heard at school, (3) adults to confide in, (4) friends to confide in, (5) learning effectiveness (“how well are you able to learn new school materials these days?”), (6) time for fun, (7) worry about grades, (8) worry about life after graduating, (9) worry about parents’ jobs and finances, and (10) worry about family health.

The findings

The first question addressed was whether there had been any changes in rates of serious depression and anxiety from 2019 to the first months of COVID-19. Levels of serious or clinically significant depression and anxiety, which had ranged from 5-10% in pre-pandemic 2019 research, were typically half those during COVID-19 in 2020. The notable exception to this were two groups: Depression in Hispanic young people hardly decreased at all and depression in gender non-binary young people increased a little.

Considering mental health as well as its potential drivers, the researchers drew attention to the unique experiences of several subgroups.

• Black youth reported lower levels of anxiety on average than White youth. At the same time, they reported somewhat lower parent support, more worry about family jobs, more concern about not having adults to confide in, and not having their concerns heard at school. Asian youth had the most confidence in their ability to learn during the pandemic. At the same time, they were more worried than White youth about their academic grades, their futures, and their families’ health and jobs.
• Hispanic youth were at a disadvantage compared to White youth on several dimensions, and unlike other groups of color, there was no area in which they fared better than White youth. Also, when tracked across the first 12 weeks of mandatory distance learning, students of Hispanic heritage showed steep increases in symptoms of anxiety, problems with learning, and worries about grades. Hispanic students described blatant experiences of discrimination at school and a relative lack of systematic attention to this.
• Even when comparisons of ethnic groups were statistically significant, the overall size of associations was small. By contrast, effects by gender were medium to large on both depression and anxiety. Compared to both males and females, gender non-binary youth reported higher levels of depression and lower levels of concerns heard at school and confiding in friends. This may have been because they had less access to support from professionals and friends as a result of being confined at home.
• Girls showed higher levels of depression and anxiety than boys, as is generally the case. They also reported somewhat less support from parents, less ability to confide in adults, less feeling that their concerns were heard at school, and more worries about family jobs and family health.
• Older students (high-school age) reported slightly higher levels of anxiety and depression than younger students (middle-school age), as well as less parent support. On two aspects of academics – effectiveness of learning and worry about their futures – older students were considerably more troubled than younger students.

The second question addressed in the study was, of the 10 drivers of mental health assessed, which ones were strongly related to students’ mental health?

“Hispanic youth were at a disadvantage compared to White youth on several dimensions, and unlike other groups of color, there was no area in which they fared better than White youth.”

Each of the 10 risk and protective influences listed earlier was statistically related to levels of depression and anxiety, but one stood out as the most influential: perceived parental support. This pattern of findings generally held true in different student subgroups based on students’ ethnicity, gender, and age (middle versus high school). Following parent support, other dimensions important for mental health were effectiveness of learning online, concerns heard by school adults, and worries about grades and about the future.

In addition to recommending support for parents, the researchers stressed the importance of supporting teachers, who have been pivotal in boosting young people’s mental health during COVID-19. When asked what was going well at school during school closures, students in this study mentioned support from their teachers most frequently. In the months ahead, schools will need to help buffer against burnout and emotional exhaustion among their faculty and staff as a result of high, longstanding burdens of caregiving.

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