An 18-Year Model of Family

an 18-Year Model of Family and Peer Effects on Adolescent Drug Use and Delinquency

The increasing rates of adolescents with substance related behavioral problems are astounding researchers in the field. How do these behavioral problems surface? This study aims to prove that it is an inter-weaving of both familial and peer relationships which help determine later teen behavior. Additionally, it links the non-traditional parenting methodologies with high potential teenage problems of increased drug use and violence.

The study looks at the importance of peer relationships within the development of adolescent behavior based on the idea that adolescents spend more time outside of the home than in. However, their peer's behavior as well as their behavior on their peers, stems back to earlier family related issues and contexts. And so, this study focuses on correlating the two developmental phases in a way to predict probabilities of individual adolescents turning to drug abuse and other negative behaviors. In fact, they were successful in showing that both familial and peer relationships affect later behavior during adolescence.

Three specific hypotheses make up the predictions of this study. The first is the idea that problems during teenage years are caused by both family and peer related influences; yet it is the peer relationships which prove the stronger of the two. Therefore, the second posits the idea that both these relationships would serve as predictors for future adolescent behavioral problems. The third conceits that if parents provide strong socially promote values early on the would decrease the level of behavioral problems, rather than "less conventional parental values" which lead to increased levels of bad teen-age behavior.

Researchers used two groups of families based in the level of socially accepted parenting methods. An independent control group of families with traditionally accepted married parents, and the dependent group of non-traditional families: single mother homes: commune environments, and non-legally married couples. It was this comparison which researchers hoped to help prove their hypothesis.

The study used a variety of measures to track families both before and after birth of their child. Interviews and questionnaires began in the last trimester of the pregnancy and lasted until the child was 18 years old. These methods were used to report family environment and peer influence. During the child's first and second grade years, teachers were also asked to rate the child's competence in the classroom.