1. Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach Chapter 7
Family Relationships
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

2. Chapter Overview Family lives Parent’s development at midlife
Relationships with parents, siblings and extended family members
Parenting styles
Historical contexts of adolescent’s family lives
Family problems

3. Family Systems Approach
To understand family functioning one must understand how each relationship within the family influences the family as a whole
The family system is composed of a variety of subsystems
EXAMPLE: The subsystems in a family consisting of
two parents and an adolescent would be:
Mother and adolescent
Father and adolescent
Mother and father

4. Family Systems Approach
Based on 2 key ideas:
Each subsystem influences every other subsystem in the family
A change in any family member or family subsystem results in a period of disequilibrium until the family system adjusts to the change

5. Parents’ Development during Midlife
For most parents, their children's development during adolescence and emerging adulthood overlaps with their own development during midlife
Why is this the case?
Median age of marriage and first childbirth in industrialized societies is quite high
If adolescence begins about age 10, this means that most parents are nearly age 40 with their first child enters adolescence

6. Is there a “midlife crisis”?
For most people midlife is in may ways the prime of life (despite popular beliefs)
Job satisfaction peaks
Job status and power peaks
Earning power increases
Marital problems decline
Marital satisfaction increases
Gender roles become less restrictive
People’s tend to become more flexible and adaptive
Adolescents growing autonomy my be welcomed by parents (e.g. empty nest syndrome)
… but that’s not the whole story

7. The crisis of midlife .. Two illustrations
For men in blue-collar professions that require physical strength and stamina, such as construction or factory worker, job performance becomes more difficult to sustain in middle adulthood and job satisfaction declines
Only about one fourth of divorces take place after age 40 but midlife divorces tend to be even more emotionally and financially difficult

8. Research Focus: The Daily Rhythms of Adolescents’ Family Lives
Changes in time spent
with others during adolescence

9. Sibling Relationships
Five Common Patterns in Adolescents’ Relationships with Their Siblings
Caregiver relationship
Buddy relationship
Critical relationship
Rival relationship
Casual relationship
In traditional cultures, the caregiver relationship
between siblings is the most common form
Adolescents in traditional cultures often have child-care responsibilities

10. Extended Family Relationships
Traditional Cultures
Young men generally remain in their family home after marriage and young women move into their new husband’s home
This practice has been remarkably resistant to the influence of globalization
This pattern is typical in India, China and most traditional cultures in Asia and Africa
In these cultures children typically grow up in a house that includes parents, siblings as well as grandparents and often uncles, aunts and cousins
Similar patterns of closeness to grandparents have been found among adolescents in American minority cultures

11. Extended Family Relationships
American Majority Culture
Adolescents’ contact with extended family members is relatively infrequent
Extended family members often live many miles away
American adolescents have significantly less contact with their extended family members as compared with adolescents in European countries because European extended family are more likely to live in close proximity
An exception to this pattern occurs among adolescents in divorced families who tend to have increased contact with grandparents during adolescence (especially with their maternal grandfather)

12. Parenting Styles
The kinds of practices that parents exhibit in relation to their children and the effects of these practices
Parenting has been described in terms of two dimensions
Demandingness (i.e. control)
The degree to which parents set down rules and expectations for behavior and require their children to comply with them
Responsiveness (i.e. warmth)
The degree to which parents are sensitive to their children’s needs and the extent to which they express love, warmth, and concern for their children

13. The Interaction of Demandingness and Responsiveness
High Responsiveness
High Demandingness
Low Responsiveness
Low Demandingness
Authoritarian
Authoritative
Indifferent
Indulgent

14. How parents might sound?
Authoritative
Indulgent
Authoritarian
Indifferent
“No you can’t go to the mall today. You know the family made plans to go to see your sick aunt. How about we drop you off at your friend’s house on the way home. Good enough compromise?”
“Do it my way because I said so! Don’t argue with me … it’s my house and my rules”
Adolescent: “Mom are you home … mom {no answer} … I guess I’m in charge of dinner again
“Sure you can have a party in the house while we’re away – the key to the liquor cabinet in is you father’s sock drawer”

15. American Parenting Styles
Authoritative parenting was somewhat more common in middle-class families and White families
Authoritarian parenting was more common in minority families than in White families

16. American Parenting Styles
What beliefs are reflected in the parenting styles?
Research on child rearing goals shows that American parents tend to value independence highly as a quality they wish to promote in their children
Authoritarian parenting clearly discourages independence but the other three parenting styles which account for 85% (shown in the previous graph) reflect parents’ beliefs that it is good for adolescents to learn autonomy

17. A More Complex Picture of Parenting Effects
Reciprocal or Bidirectional Effects
Adolescents not only are affected by their parents but also affect their parent in return
Complexity of Siblings
Most research on the effects of parenting styles involves only one adolescent per family
The few studies that have included more than one adolescent per family have shown that adolescent siblings within the same family often give very different accounts of what their parents are like toward them

18. A More Complex Picture of Parenting Effects
Differential Parenting
Parent’s behavior often differs toward siblings within the same family
Non-shared Environmental Influences
Differential parenting can result in non-shared environmental influences meaning that the adolescents experience quite different family environments and the consequences of these differences are evident in adolescents’ behaviour and psychological functioning

19. Parenting in Other Cultures
The most striking difference in parenting styles is how rare the authoritative parenting style is in non-Western cultures
Parents expect that their authority will be obeyed, without question and without requiring an explanation
The role of the parent carries greater inherent authority than it does in the West
Parents are not supposed to provide reasons why they should be respected and obeyed
Does this mean that the typical parenting styles
in traditional cultures is authoritarian?
No. The fact is they do not fit very will into the parenting scheme presented. They are generally closest to authoritative parents because like them they tend to be high in demandingness and high in responsiveness. However their demandingness is very different from authoritative parents in American or Western cultures

20. Traditional Parenting Style
This is a term proposed to describe the kind of parenting typical in traditional cultures – high in responsiveness and high in a kind of demandingness that does not encourage discussion and debate but rather expects compliance by virtue of cultural beliefs supporting the inherent authority of the parental role

21. Traditional Parenting Style Two Examples
Asian Americans
Chao (2001) argues that White researchers misunderstand Asian American parenting and mislabel it as authoritarian
Asian adolescents show none of the negative effects typically associated with authoritarian parenting
They have higher educational achievement, lower rates of behavioural problems and lowers rates of psychological problems
Latino Americans
Latino parents in American society have also typically been classified as authoritarian
The Latino cultural belief system places emphasis on respecto (respect and obedience to parents and elders – especially fathers)
Latino cultural beliefs also believe is familismo (love, closeness and mutual obligations of Latino family life)

22. Attachment Theory
Originally developed by John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980)
Attachments between parents and children have an evolutionary basis in the need for vulnerable young members of the species to stay in close proximity to adults who will care for and protect them
Mary Ainsworth (1967, 1982) described two general types of attachment:
Secure attachment
In which infants use the mother as a ‘secure base form which to explore’ but seek physical comfort and consolation from her if frightened or threatened
Insecure attachment
Infants are wary of exploring the environment and resist or avoid the mother when she attempts to offer comfort or consolation

23. Research on the Effects of Secure Attachment in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood
Secure attachment to parents in adolescence is related to a variety of favorable outcomes
Effects on Adolescents
Adolescents’ well being
Higher self-esteem
Better psychological and physical health
Tend to have closer relationships with friends and romantic partners
More autonomous and self-reliant
Effects on Emerging Adults
Higher educational and occupational attainment
Lower psychological problems
Lower drug use

24. Parent-Adolescent Conflict
G. Stanley Hall (1904)
Anna Freud (1946)
Both researchers made it sound as though it was universal and inevitable that ALL adolescents rebel against their parents and that ALL parents and adolescents experience intense conflict for many years
How accurate are these early theories?

25. Parent-Adolescent Conflict
Few scholars on adolescence believe this anymore!
Adolescents and their parents agree on many of the most important aspects of their views of life
Studies in the 1960’s (which were the first to dispel the stereotype of ‘storm and stress’) found that
a great majority of adolescents like their parents, trust and admire them
when disagreement does occur it was usually over seemingly minor issues (e.g. clothes, curfews)

26. Conflict Details
Conflict with parents increases sharply in early adolescence and remains high for several years
Conflict in adolescence is especially frequent and intense between mothers and daughters
It is only in late adolescence and emerging adulthood that conflict with parents diminishes substantially

27. Reasons for Conflict in Early Adolescence
Biological Changes
Adolescents become bigger and stronger physically making it more difficult for parents to impose their authority by virtue of their greater physical presence
Cognitive Changes
Increased abilities for thinking abstracting and with more complexity make adolescents better arguers and it becomes more difficult for parents to prevail quickly in arguments with their children

28. Culture and Conflict with Parents
Conflict is not universal and “natural”
Biological and cognitive changes take place among adolescents in all cultures
Parent-adolescent conflict is not typical in all cultures T H E R
E FORE
Culture can take the raw materials of nature and shape them in highly diverse ways

29. Conflict in Traditional Cultures
It is rare for parents and adolescents to engage in the kind of frequent, petty conflicts typical of parent-adolescent relationship in the American majority culture
Reasons:
Economic: In non-industrialized traditional cultures, family members tend to rely a great deal on each other economically
Culture: Cultural beliefs about parental authority and the appropriate degree of adolescent independence

30. Parents and Emerging Adults
Typically relationships between parents and emerging adults improve once the young person leaves home
Emerging adults report greater closeness and fewer negative feelings toward their parents after moving
Those who had moved at least an hour away by car from their parents reported
highest levels of closeness to their parents
valued their parents’ opinions most highly
Those who remained home
Poorest relations with their parents in these respects

31. A Brief Overview of ‘Living at Home’ in the United States
Most emerging adults move out of their parents’ home in their late teen
About 30% stay home through their early twenties
Staying at home is more common among Latinos, Blacks and Asian Americans than among White Americans
About 40% of American emerging adults “return to the nest” to live at least once after they leave

32. A Brief Overview of ‘Living at Home’ in Europe
Emerging adults tend to live with their parents longer than in the U.S.
European university students are more likely than American students to continue to live at home while they attend university
Emerging adults who don’t attend university may have difficulty finding or affording an apartment of their own
European cultural vales that emphasize mutual support within the family while also allowing young people substantial autonomy

33. Historical Change – Patterns over Two Centuries
Three changes over the past two centuries have influenced family life
Lower birth rate
In 1800, women in the U.S. had an average of 8 children
Today the average number of children is 2
Longer life expectancy
Up until 1900, the average life expectancy was about 45
Now the average human life expectancy is over 70
Movement from rural to urban residence
As recently at 1830, 70% of children lived in farm families
By 1930, this figure had dropped to 30%
Today it is less than 2%

34. The Changing Functions of the Family
Performing Institution, 1800
Performing Institution, 2000
Educational
Family
School
Religious
Church/Synagogue
Medical
Medical Profession
Economic Support
Employer
Recreational
Entertainment Industry
Affective
The family in our time has mainly emotional or affective functions
To provide love, nurturance and affection above all else.

35. Historical Change – The Last 50 years
The most dramatic changes have been in the following three areas:
Divorce Rate
The current rate is so high that nearly half of the current generation of young people are projected to experience their parents’ divorce by the time they reach their late teens
Single Parent Households
Mothers represent 90% of custodial parents (parents who lives in the same household as the children)
Besides divorce there has been a rise in the proportion of children born outside of marriage
Dual-Earner Families
Employment among women with school-aged children has increased from about ¼ to over ¾

36. Changes in Divorce Rate
Americans have the highest divorce rate of any country in the world

37. Effects of Divorce
Young people whose parents have divorced are at higher risk for a wide variety of negative outcomes:
Behavior problems
Psychological distress
Lower academic achievement
Higher rates of drug and alcohol use
Initiate sexual intercourse at an earlier age
Depression and withdrawal
Anxiousness
Less likely to attend college

38. Effects of Divorce
In emerging adulthood, the effects of parental divorce are evident in:
Greater problems in forming close romantic relationships
Wariness of entering marriage
Their determination to avoid divorce
Interesting Footnote: The risk of divorce is
higher for young people from divorced families

39. Effects of Divorce – Family Process
Family process is the quality of family members’ relationships, how much warmth or hostility there is between them, and so on
Three factors of family process with regard to the effects of children and adolescents of divorce
Exposure to conflict between parents
Exposure to parents’ conflicts, more than the specific event of divorce is especially damaging
Effects on parenting practices
Divorce is stressful and painful to most of the adults who experience it and it affects their role as parents
Increases in economic stress
Money is tight in mother-headed households
Income in mother-headed households decreases by an average of 40% to 50%

40. Effects of Remarriage
Adolescents typically take a turn for the worse when their mothers remarry
Adolescents in stepfamilies have a greater likelihood for a variety of problems:
Depression
Anxiety
Conduct disorders
Lower academic achievement
More likely to engage in delinquent activities
More problems adjusting to the remarriage
Girls tend to have an especially negative reaction to their mothers’ remarriage

41. Effects of Single Parenthood
Just as in divorced families, adolescents in never-married, single-parent households are at greater risk for a variety of problems
Low school achievement
Depression
Anxiety
Substance use
Early initiation of sexual activity
Interesting Footnote: African American families
have a long tradition of extended family household and
an extended family structure has been found to
provide important assistance to single parent families

42. Effects of Dual-Earner Families
The effects of dual-earner families depend on the gender of the adolescent
Effects on Girls
Often quite positive
Tend to become more confident
Have higher career aspirations
Effects on Boys
More negative than the effects on girls
Have more arguments with their mothers and siblings
Poorer school performance for boys in middle-class and upper-middle-class families

43. Family Abuses Sexual Abusers Factors related to Physical Abuse
Feel inadequate in their relationships with adults
They prefer to seek sexual satisfaction from children, who are easier to control
Sexually abused adolescents
Have difficulty trusting others and forming intimate relationships
Experience depression, high anxiety and social withdrawal
May become either highly avoidant of sexual contact or highly promiscuous
Substance abuse
Suicidal thoughts and behaviors
Higher risk for psychological disorder
Factors related to Physical Abuse
Abusive parents are more likely to have been abused themselves as children
Family stresses or problems in parents’ lives
Parents tend to be poorly skilled at parenting
Abused adolescents
Tend to be more aggressive in their interactions with peers
More likely to engage in antisocial behavior and substance use
More likely to be depressed and anxious
Perform more poorly in school

44. Running Away from Home
About 1 million adolescents run away from home each year in the U.S.
About ¼ of these adolescents are “throwaways” – their parents have forced them to leave
Adolescents who run away from home have often experienced high conflict with their parents
Many have experienced physical or sexual abuse
Adolescents who run away tend to be highly vulnerable to exploitation
Characteristics of
adolescents who
run away
Involved in criminal activity
Use illicit drugs
Had problems at school
Had psychological difficulties
More likely to be gay or lesbian

45. “Street Children” around the World
It is estimated that the total number of street children worldwide may be as high as 100 million
Main forces leading to adolescents on the street:
Family dysfunction
Poverty
War
Family breakdown due to AIDS
Parental substance abuse
Physical and/or sexual abuse
In Brazil estimates of
the number of street
children range from 7
to 30 million.
Some return home in
the evening bringing
what they’ve collected.
Others return
home rarely.
In India it is estimated there are 11
million street children.
About ½ Indian street children; of those
who are homeless 4 out of 5 families
are homeless.