The long term goal of this project is to provide better understanding of family factors that contribute to positive psychological adjustment in early adolescence, particularly in regard to the transition to junior high school. Early adolescence is a time of major physical and psychological change, and also a time that requires adjustment to a new and often stressful academic environment.
The aim of the study is to discover which patterns of parenting behavior and which family environment variables may serve to enhance or diminish the young adolescent's self-esteem, competence, ability to cope with challenge and adversity, and overall emotional well-being and mental health. The project will proceed as follows. There will be 120 families of fifth grade children. Parents and children will be interviewed, parents will fill out checklists and questionnaires on their child and on their parenting, and the child will fill out several self- report measures tapping into self-concept, self-esteem, current mental health, and perceptions of parents. Six sessions of naturalistic observation in the home will take place, focusing on parent-child interaction. Interviews, self-report forms, and ratings will be administered again during the sixth and seventh grade years. These family data will be correlated with measures of academic performance, classroom behavior, and peer relationships obtained at periodic intervals over three years, from school records, teachers, and peers. The longitudinal nature of the study will make it possible to measure the adaptation and coping process over time, in relation to individual and family environment variables. Thus it will provide a better understanding of the adaptation process, and the mediating role the family may play in it.
| Gottlieb, D; Bronstein, P (1996) Parents' perceptions of children's worries in a changing world. J Genet Psychol 157:104-18 |
| Ginsburg, G S; Bronstein, P (1993) Family factors related to children's intrinsic/extrinsic motivational orientation and academic performance. Child Dev 64:1461-74 |
