Chapter 2: Adolescent Development and Family Involvement: Holly Kreider and Marie-Anne Suizzo

Why consider and even encourage family involvement in the lives of adolescents, when adolescents themselves may want nothing more than to be left alone or in the company of their friends? First, adolescents do want to maintain connections to their parents and other adult caregivers (Deslandes & Cloutier, 2002), albeit in different ways than younger children do. Second, adolescence is often considered a watershed period in development, characterized by dramatic physical changes, powerful peer influences, and risk-taking behaviors (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). However, most youth pass through this period unscathed, often because their parents and other caregivers continue to exert considerable influence in their lives. Third, there is wide agreement that family involvement in children’s learning benefits children’s socioemotional and cognitive/academic outcomes (Henderson & Mapp, 2002). Although much research has focused on family involvement in early and middle childhood, evidence of its benefits during adolescence is also compelling (Kreider, Caspe, Kennedy & Weiss, 2007). Yet family involvement tends to decline during and even before children reach middle school, and declines further as students reach high school (Spera, 2005). Researchers speculate that increasingly complex school structures, students’ heightened desire for autonomy, and parents’ waning knowledge of subject matter may explain this decline (Eccles & Harold, 1993). By shining a spotlight on family involvement during adolescence, we hope to bring into sharp relief its importance during this developmental period, as well as ways to connect the research to educational practice.