Traditionally, Parental Monitoring Has Been Found To Be One Of The Most Important Protective Factors Against Teenage Delinquency. However, Too Much Monitoring Might Sometimes Be Counter-Productive.

By Tara Kuther

Does A Parent’s Mental Health Affect How Well An Adolescent Responds To Psychological Interventions?

Parents play an important role in their adolescents’ lives. When parents are suffering from their own mental health issues, their children suffer as well. For example, when parents experience psychiatric symptoms, their adolescent children are more likely to use substances or develop mood disorders. However, there is little research involving how parents’ mental health issues affect how well adolescents respond to psychological interventions, especially for interventions that target adolescents’ use of substances such as marijuana and alcohol, and their sexual risk behaviors such as engaging in unprotected sex. There is even less research of this type on adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system. Thus, the current study set out to fill these gaps in the literature.

Empathy Is A Trait That Develops During Adolescence. However, It Seems That The Course Of Development Might Be Gender-Specific.

By Tara Kuther

What Determines Whether Adolescents Decide To Pursue Careers In STEM Fields? This Research Suggests That Friends Play A Huge Role.

By Rachael D. Robnett and Campbell Leaper

Everybody Would Agree That Mentoring Is Important For Positive Youth Development. However, Millions Of Adolescents Will Grow Up Without A Mentor In Their Life. Learn More About The Ways One University Tries To Close This Gap.

“Before meeting my mentor, I was thinking I’d never succeed, that I’d just live with my parents my whole life until I get kicked out because I’m such a problem. But then I met my mentor and got the support that I needed. Now, I feel like if I want to do something, and it’s something that I really want to do, I will do it no matter how many people tell me I can’t.  Talking to my mentor helps me because she tells me that I can do it and she supports me.”

Many People Opt For A Joint Custody Following A Divorce So That Children Can Keep Seeing Both Parents Regularly. However, For Some Of The Children, It Might Actually Be More Problematic.

By Tara Kuther

Puberty Is A Normal Process, But How You Go Through Puberty Can Set Your Life On A Specific Trajectory.

Puberty is something we all go through and yet there is limited science to explain what is happening inside our bodies during this transition, and how it affects our physical and mental health.

When We Say That There Is “Chemistry” Between People, We Are Not Probably Referring To The Activity Of The MHC-Genes. However, This Mechanism Might Be One Of The Key Components For Finding The Love Of Your Life.

By Karen Wu

Latino Adolescents Might Become Targets Of Discrimination Due To Their Origin. However, Research Shows That Engaging With Their Ethnic Identity Might Serve As A Protective Factor.

By Tara Kuther

Adolescents Engage In A Great Deal Of Risky Behaviors, Particularly When Their Friends Are Around. This Is Especially Problematic When Adolescents Become Drivers. 

By Tara Kuther

During Adolescence, Interaction With Parents Can Become A Source Of Stress. Although It Might Seem That These Daily Hassles Are Trivial, The Stress Tends To Accumulate And Negatively Impact Health.

By Tara Kuther

Dating And Sexual Intercourse During Adolescence Is Often Seen As Negative, But Some Researchers View It As An Important Developmental Milestone.

Romantic relationships and sexual activity during adolescence are often viewed in the popular media as a complex topic. One popular news article from a parents-of-teens website suggests that teens should not be allowed to date until the parent has discussed with them all aspects of romance and dating, including sexual activity. However, opinions on “The Talk” and discussing sexual intercourse with adolescents vary by region. For example, I grew up in a highly conservative area of the South and had to sign a chastity pledge as part of my abstinence-only sexual education. Meanwhile, my friends in other states learned about various birth control methods. Some researchers maintain that early romantic relationships and sexual debut have harmful effects. Other researchers insist that these processes are all part of natural development and may have positive effects.

Boston High School Aged Youth Spent The Summer As Researchers In Their Communities And Shared Their Thoughts On What Contributes To Barriers To Wellness For Youth Of Color

This summer I worked on a research team that initiated a project called the Culture of Health Accelerator. The goal was to engage, mentor and support local youth to organize and implement culture of health initiatives in the shared community of Boston, MA. The idea was to empower youth to become active participants in decisions that impact their overall health and well-being. Youth can provide a perspective that is different from adults which can lead to innovative solutions to health problems and unique forms of data collection. Youth who participated in the first iteration of a six week summer institute had the opportunity to conduct and present their own research on the major issues that influence the health of those in their communities. One of the issues that the youth discussed in their presentation was the lack of access to healthy foods. They talked about how many of them purchase unhealthy foods and snacks from corner stores because there are no grocery stores in their neighborhoods.

What Can We Do For LGBTQ Youth That Are Too Often Targets Of Victimization And Discrimination? School-Based Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA) Might Be Instrumental In Promoting Resilience.

By Tara Kuther

Making And Keeping Friends: Examining Change And Stability In Trust, Reciprocity, And Empathy As Teens Age.

Adolescence, the period between ages 10 – 22, is a phase in life in which the social world becomes increasingly important. Maybe you recall this from your own teenage years: adolescents become more and more preoccupied with questions such as “What do others think about me?”, “How do I become popular?”, and “How can I make sure to make a lot of friends?” The increasingly complex social world of adolescents poses challenges, but also opportunities to develop social skills and work towards mature, long-term social goals. It has been argued that adolescents show a shift from self-oriented behavior towards other-oriented behavior, which helps them to attain the ‘adult goal’ of developing and maintaining stable, close relationships. There are several developmental changes in adolescence, such as increased sensitivity to rewards and improved perspective-taking skills, that make adolescence a period in which other-oriented behaviors are likely to emerge and become more complex.

Strategies For Identifying And Preventing Adolescent Depression: Summarizing 15 Years Of Research

With depression predicted to contribute to an increased disease burden in coming decades, prevention efforts have become increasingly important. Prevention needs to commence early in the lifecycle, possibly even with children as young as four years of age. To identify children and adolescents who are most at risk, our research looked to understand sub-groups of children with similarities in the development of depressive symptoms over time. We reviewed twenty English language longitudinal studies published between 2002 and 2015 originating in USA (8), Canada (5), Netherlands (2), Germany, Finland, Chile, Holland, and the UK/Wales/Scotland. We found five subgroups of children and adolescents through a unique statistical analysis known as trajectory modeling. While the majority (56%) of children followed a ‘No or low’ depressive symptom trajectory over time, 26% followed a ‘Moderate’ depressive symptom trajectory and 12% followed ‘High’, ‘Increasing’, or ‘Decreasing’ depressive symptom trajectories (total of 94% is due to rounding across studies).

Being Forcibly Separated From Your Parents Is Traumatic. These Are The Effects Teenagers Often Experience.

There are currently hundreds of migrant children and adolescents who were forcibly taken from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, and most of them are currently being detained in hastily-made, spartan holding facilities. This policy has been met with outrage by politicians and citizens alike, many of who have expressed concern about the effect even a temporary parental separation might have on young people. It almost goes without saying that being forcibly taken from parents, with no knowledge of if or when you will see them again, is deeply traumatic. From developmental and psychological perspectives, what makes familial separation so harmful for teenagers?

Social Media Comparison Based On Opinion, Rather Than Ability, Is Adaptive For Youth.

In the digital age, social media makes social comparison easy by providing rich materials for comparison. Social comparison is a self-evaluation process in which people compare themselves with others. Social comparison comes in two forms: comparison of ability and comparison of opinion (see here, here, and here for additional details). Ability comparison is competition-based and thus inherently judgmental. It focuses on determining the superiority or inferiority of one’s performances and achievements, relative to others. Opinion comparison is information-based. It centers on identifying similarities and differences in ideas, values, and attitudes between oneself and others.

What Does Good Intersectional Research Look Like? What Questions Should Researchers Be Grappling With?

There is growing interest among developmental scientists in the applications of intersectionality to the study of adolescence. Although definitions and descriptions of intersectionality vary, this body of work is generally believed to argue that systemic oppressions (e.g., racism, able-ism, heterosexism, etc.) overlap to create unique conditions for individuals; conditions that are bound by the social contexts one is embedded in, and with implications for one’s well-being and development. This perspective raises critical and important questions about the study of adolescence. For example, How do we best theorize and measure overlapping oppressions among adolescents? How are overlapping oppressions experienced and how do they contribute to adolescents’ lives? Despite intersectionality’s increased popularity and presence in various fields, developmental scientists’ grappling with the emphasis on systemic overlapping oppressions has been limited.