While reducing the risk of substance abuse and heart problems.
However, these studies are often limited by small sample sizes, short-term outcomes, separate measures for parent-adolescent relationship characteristics, lack of diversity, and a focus on relationships only with mothers rather than on relationships with mothers and fathers. have been limited.
investing in your child’s future
To help address these issues, this study used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. The researchers tested whether adolescents’ reports of specific, measurable characteristics of their relationships with the mother and father with whom they live were associated with health outcomes measured 14 years later.
Researchers looked at data from more than 15,000 adults who were enrolled in the study in the mid-1990s, when they were between the ages of 12 and 17.
“Our goal was to establish a clearer understanding of how different characteristics of mother-adolescent and father-adolescent relationships may be associated with a wide range of favorable outcomes in young adulthood,” said senior study author Carol A. Ford, MD, chief he said. Craig-Dulsheimer Division of Adolescent Medicine and the Orson P. Jackson Endowed Chair in Adolescent Medicine at CHOP.
In this study, the researchers looked at characteristics such as Reported parental warmth, communication, time together, and academic expectations As assessed when participants were between 12 and 17 years old.
When the same participants were 24 to 32 years old, they reported on current levels of stress, depression, optimism, nicotine dependence and substance abuse, and other measures of general health.
The study controlled for age, race, ethnicity, family structure and other factors, and separated the data by data on mothers and fathers living in the home. More than 10,000 participants were analyzed for the study.
building a strong foundation
The study found that participants who reported higher levels of mother-teen and father-teen warmth, Significantly reported communication, time together, academic expectations, relationship or communication satisfaction, and inductive discipline Higher levels of general health in young adulthood.
Similarly, they reported higher levels of optimism and romantic relationship quality and lower levels of stress and depression symptoms as young adults.
Higher levels of adolescent-reported parental warmth, together time, and relationship or communication satisfaction were also significantly associated. low level of nicotine dependence and substance abuse in young adulthood, as well as lower chances of unintended pregnancy.
“The overall pattern of these results suggests that stronger relationships between adolescents and their mothers and fathers lead to better health and well-being in young adulthood,” Ford said. “Efforts to strengthen the parent-adolescent relationship may have important long-term health benefits.”
This study was supported by grant 60721 from the John Templeton Foundation to the Research Core of the Center for Parent and Adolescent Communication at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
This study was also supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services under grant T7IMC30798 Leadership Education in Adolescent Health.
The research was also supported by grant P2C HD050924 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Health.
