Abstract
The focus of this study was on adolescent mental health. More specifically, the relationship between strength-based parenting (SBP) and subjective wellbeing (SWB) during adolescence was examined at three time points over 14 months (N = 202, Mage = 12.97, SDage = 0.91, 48% female). SBP was positively related to life satisfaction and positive affect at each of the three time points, and was negatively related to negative affect. SBP and SWB both declined significantly over time. When examining the causal relationships between SBP and SWB, two different statistical models were applied: latent growth-curve models (LGM) and random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM). The LGM revealed a strong positive relationship between changes in SBP and SWB. Specifically, this model showed that SBP at one time point predicted adolescent SWB at future time points. However, when the more stringent statistical test was completed through RI-CLPMs, no cross-lagged paths reached significance. Thus, while parenting is a significant predictor of wellbeing for pre-teens and teens in real time, it is not predictive of wellbeing at future time points. Parents, thus, cannot assume that their current levels of SBP are ‘banked’ by their children to support future wellbeing. Instead, SBP needs to be an ongoing, contemporary parenting practice. Furthermore, the fact that perceptions of SBP decline in this age bracket suggest that SBP interventions may be helpful in supporting adolescent mental health.
Highlights
The current study focuses on mental health outcomes for adolescents and sits within the paradigm of positive psychology to explore the dynamic effect of strength-based parenting (SBP) on subjective wellbeing (SWB) in pre-teens and early-to-mid teens across a 3-wave longitudinal study
Data cleaning and preparation was undertaken in SPSS and Excel, with MPlus used for all substantive analyses
The current study suggested that temporal dynamics between SBP and SWB could instead operate in short timeframes, and future research may choose to use methods that tap more into the ‘real time’ dynamics such as daily diary methods (Fisher and Gershuny, 2013) or experiential sampling methods (Hektner et al, 2006) in order to better explore the mechanisms that are underpinning the SBP-SWB link
Summary
The teen, and increasingly pre-teen, years are characterized by intense changes to a young person’s physical development, identity, social life, family relationships, exposure to drugs and alcohol, academic requirements, employment and economic responsibilities (Larson et al, 1996; Singh, 1998; Levy-Warren, 1999; Brown, 2004; Sisk and Foster, 2004; Viner and Taylor, 2007; Andersen and Teicher, 2008; Hussain et al, 2008; Sodha and Margo, 2008; Lerner and Steinberg, 2009; Sodha, 2009). The second decade of Observing Change in Strength-Based Parenting life sees a young person needing to build up the psychological, emotional, and social capacities necessary to meet the demands of these changes and grow into adulthood While these skills and dispositions develop continuously from childhood, adolescence has been recognized as a sensitive developmental period for these skills to be gained (Pfeifer et al, 2011; Somerville, 2013) given the shift to more independence (Feldman and Elliott, 1990), greater life complexity (Crone and Dahl, 2012), the teen brains heightened neuroplasticity (Andersen and Teicher, 2008; Giedd, 2008), and the fact that this is the life phase immediately prior to adulthood/emerging adulthood (Steinberg, 2014). Suicide is a leading cause of death among teenagers worldwide (Hawton et al, 2012)
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