Adolescence and Family Interaction

Abstract

since the early 1980s, the area of adolescence and the family has become one of the most rapidly growing fields in social science research / we have organized our review of the literature around three main themes / we briefly trace the field from its storm-and-stress roots of the psychoanalytic tradition to its more recent conceptual and empirical bases / [discuss] the extent and role of conflict and closeness in parent-child relations at adolescence /// second theme concerns adolescent development as a stimulus for family change / review research that has attempted to answer the question, how does a child's development at adolescence serve to influence the nature and quality of his or her family relations / how do the changes experienced by the adolescent reverberate throughout the family system / devote special attention to pubertal and cognitive changes as catalysts for transformations in parent-child relations /// review the growing body of literature concerning the influence of family interaction patterns and parenting styles on adolescent competence and psychosocial development / touch upon selected research regarding the role of family factors in the development and maintenance of behavioral and psychiatric problems among adolescents / conclude . . . with some thoughts on directions for future research