Fostering parents’ positive perceptions of adolescent development — ASN Events
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Fostering parents’ positive perceptions of adolescent development (#850)

Elyse L Postlewaite 1 , Rebecca Swan-Jackson 2 , Jennifer Brown Urban 1 , Miriam R Linver 1 , Eden Kyse 3 , Xiaofang Xue 4
  1. Family Science and Human Development, Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey, United States
  2. School of Social Work, Institute for Families, Rutgers University, New Brenswick, New Jersey, United States
  3. Center for Research and Evaluation on Education and Human Services, Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey, United States
  4. Montclair State University, Seattle, WASHINGTON, United States

Background

While positive youth development (PYD) promotes a strengths-based perspective of adolescence (Larson, 2000; Lerner et al., 2009), it is unclear how widespread those beliefs are among parents of teens or if those beliefs can be altered. The Center for Parent and Teen Communication (CPTC) disseminates online content (e.g., videos, articles) that supports parents in building protective, nurturing, strengths-based relationships that employ effective communication strategies.  

Aims

This study assessed the extent to which reviewing CPTC content changed parents' beliefs about adolescent development, authoritative parenting, and the dominant, deficit-based lens of adolescent development.

Method

A demographically stratified purposive sample of parents of teens (N = 169) completed a pre-/post-test survey.. In between survey responses, parents reviewed 4 hours of CPTC content.

Results

Paired samples t-tests and regression analyses indicated that after reviewing the content, participants had increased knowledge and positive beliefs about adolescents and the benefits of authoritative parenting.

Specifically, the study found that after reviewing the CPTC content:

1. Parents demonstrated a greater understanding of adolescent development. Further, parents were less likely to believe adolescents exhibit conforming, internalizing, risk taking/rebellious, and problem behaviors.

2. Parents were more likely to believe authoritative parenting behaviors are effective and less likely to believe permissive and authoritarian parenting behaviors are effective. Even for parents who believed at pre-test that authoritative parenting styles were effective, reviewing CPTC content significantly increased beliefs about the effectiveness of authoritative parenting, especially when parents demonstrated a greater understanding of the content.

3. Parents' beliefs about how deficit-based cultural narratives about teens can undermine PYD were not significantly changed.

Conclusion

Taken together, findings from this study indicate that a relatively brief and simple intervention was effective at changing parents’ beliefs about adolescent development and effective parenting styles. Online interventions could be a worthwhile mechanism for disseminating PYD principles and practices.

  1. Larson, R. W. (2000). Toward a psychology of positive youth development. American psychologist, 55(1), 170.
  2. Lerner, J. V., Phelps, E., Forman, Y., & Bowers, E. P. (2009). Positive youth development. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology: Individual bases of adolescent development (pp. 524-558). John Wiley & Sons Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470479193.adlpsy001016
  • Please select up to 3 keywords from the following list to best describe your submission content: Online / Virtual, Parenting, Strengths
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