1. Family Data from the Youth Connectedness Project Jan Pryor Roy McKenzie Centre for the Study of Families - October 2007

2. 1889 parents completed a survey sent home with them with the information and consent forms. From these, we ascertained that: 60.9% were first time families (2 biological parents in the same household); 24% were lone parent households; 10.9% were stepfamily households; 3.8% were extended family households. Who completed the survey?

3. Dimensions of family life assessed in the parents’ questionnaire Family cohesion Family identity (how much people feel they belong to their family) Mutual family activities Encouragement of autonomy in children Monitoring of children’s activities Family conflict levels THESE DIMENSIONS WERE ALSO ASSESSED IN THE YOUNG PEOPLE

4. DIFFERENCES IN PARENTS’ AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S PERCEPTIONS OF FAMILY DIMENSIONS: On all dimensions young people rated them at lower levels than parents. I. e. Lower autonomy Lower cohesion Lower sense of identity Fewer mutual activities reported by youth Less monitoring Higher conflict (very small difference)

5. CHANGES WITH AGE: Young people’s assessments of encouragement of autonomy, cohesion, family identity, mutual activities, and monitoring all reduced in levels with age of young people Parents’ assessments of cohesion, monitoring, and mutual activities reduced with age, but not conflict, family identity, or autonomy

6. FAMILY STRUCTURE DIFFERENCES There were consistent, but very minor differences in family variables and wellbeing amongst family structural groups. Overall, children in intact families and their parents reported slightly higher levels on all family variables than those in the other groups (lone, step, and extended).These differences were all positive. It is very likely that these explain the small differences in outcomes for children in the different groups i.e. family processes explain differences in outcomes as much as or more than family structure.

7. IMPORTANCE OF WHOLE-FAMILY VARIABLES Whole-family variables such as sense of family identity, cohesion, and mutual activities are of particular interest since they focus on the family as a group rather than on dyadic relationships within the family such as parent-child relationships. We found that cohesion and identity were predictive of wellbeing in young people over and above the quality of the relationships with mothers and fathers, although these relationships partially mediated the relationship between whole- family variables and overall wellbeing.

8. Family cohesion WELLBEING AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH WHOLE FAMILY VARIABLES Family identity Ease/confidence With father Ease/confidence With mother WELLBEING.22**.18**.13**.10**

9. Family cohesion LIFE SATISFACTION AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH WHOLE FAMILY VARIABLES Family identity Ease/confidence With father Ease/confidence With mother LIFE SATISFACTION.14**.24**.12**.10**

10. What next? Families are invited to repeat the questionnaire this year and next year We have a great deal more analysis to do All our data so far suggest that families are of continuing and significant importance to young people