Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Each Family Dinner Adds Up to Benefits for Adolescents

Parents have heard it for years: Family dinners help kids avoid risky behaviors and may even help them in school.

But new research shows that the more frequent these dinners, the better the adolescents fare emotionally, says new research published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

"The effect doesn't plateau after three or four dinners a week," says co-author Frank Elgar, an associate professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montréal. "The more dinners a week the better."

With each additional dinner, researchers found fewer emotional and behavioral problems, greater emotional well-being, more trusting and helpful behaviors toward others and higher life satisfaction, regardless of gender, age or family economics. The study was based on a nationally representative sample of 26,069 Canadian adolescents ages 11 to 15 in 2010.

While researchers see a correlation, they can't say family dinners caused the benefits. "We don't know if family dinners contribute to mental health, or if mental health and other behavioral problems cause some teenagers to avoid the family dinner," Elgar says.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/24/family-dinner-adolescent-benefits/2010731/

Parent-Child Violence Leads to Teen Dating Violence

Teens today are involved in intimate relationships at a much younger age and often have different definitions of what is acceptable behavior in a relationship. Violence is something that is all too common and according to researchers at Iowa State it is a reflection of the relationships teens have with their parents or their parent's partner.

"It is true that if you grow up in a violent household you have a higher likelihood of being in a violent relationship," said Brenda Lohman, lead author and an associate professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University.

The research focused on psychological violence instead of physical violence. Lohman and her colleagues discovered that psychological violence between a parent and child was more significant than a child witnessing violence between two adults in the home.

"If the parent is more aggressive toward the child, the child is more likely to be in relationships where they're being victimized or perpetrating violence against their partner a few years or even a decade later," Lohman said.

The study is one of the first to examine patterns of violence over three decades to see how children exposed to psychological violence and family stress were affected in relationships later in life.

The study is published in the April issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Source: ScienceDaily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130325160237.htm

Current Positive Family Relationships Linked to Healthy Marriages Later

Adolescents who have positive relationships with their parents tend to have stable and satisfying relationships in their early adult marriages as well as romantic relationships, a University of California Davis study has found.

Researchers, who began studying 265 individuals in the 1990s, found that nurturing parents contributed to the future success of their children's young adult romantic relationships.

"Our results indicate that when parenting behaviors are high in warmth and supportiveness, high in levels of child monitoring and positive child management and low in levels of harsh and inconsistent discipline in adolescence, early adult children are more likely to endorse the belief that marriage requires emotional investment," researchers said. "In turn, these emotional investments were associated with more positive romantic relationship interactions with a partner."

The study has practical implications for the importance of premarital and marital counseling that emphasizes the positive aspects of parenting, commitment in marriage and romantic relationships, sharing of relationship beliefs and expectations, and other aspects that can prepare people for romantic partnerships, the authors said.

Source: Daily Democrat
http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_22759302/uc-davis-study-positive-family-relationships-linked-healthy

The Family that Dines Together [INFOGRAPHIC]

This inforgraphic from OnlineClasses.org displays benefits that come with a regularly scheduled family dinner.

Source: OnlineClasses.org
 

The Importance of Family Dinners - VIII

Over the past 18 years, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASAColumbia) at Columbia University has surveyed thousands of American teens and their parents to identify factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of teen substance abuse. We have learned that a child who gets through age 21 without smoking, using illegal drugs or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so. And, we’ve learned that parents have the greatest influence on whether their teens will choose to use.

These surveys have consistently found that the more often children have dinners with their parents, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs, and that parental engagement fostered around the dinner table is one of the most potent tools to help parents raise healthy, drug-free children.

Simply put: frequent family dinners make a difference.

In the latest report, The Importance of Family Dinners VIII, CASAColumbia examined the link between the frequency of family dinners and and the quality of teens’ relationships with their parents, the frequency with which teens attend religious services and how much parents know about what’s going on in their children’s lives, which in turn relate to the likelihood of teens’ marijuana, alcohol and tobacco use. Compared to teens who have infrequent family dinners (fewer than three per week) those who have frequent family dinners (five to seven per week), are:

• One and a half times more likely to say their parents know a great deal or a fair amount about what's really going on in their lives,
• One and a half times more likely to say they have an excellent relationship with their mother and father,
• One and a half times likelier to attend religious services at least four times a month,
• One and a half times less likely to report high levels of stress,
• About half as likely to say they expect to try drugs in the future,
• Currently using alcohol or drugs at significantly reduced levels.

Source: The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASAColumbia)
http://www.casacolumbia.org/upload/2012/2012924familydinnersVIII.pdf

 

Most Grandparents Provide Care for the Grandkids

Most grandparents babysit and provide financial support for grandkids as they try to save their children money and build stronger family connections, two new studies show.

A University of Chicago analysis of a decade of data based on interviews with 13,614 grandparents, ages 50 and older, finds that 61% of grandparents provided at least 50 hours a year of care for grandchildren at least one year between 1998 and 2008; 70% provided care for two years or more. The data are from a longitudinal survey collected every two years since 1992 by the University of Michigan. Findings are in the Journal of Family Issues.

Another survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,008 grandparents ages 45 and older, suggests similar findings. The online research was done in April for the MetLife Mature Market Institute and the nonprofit Generations United, an intergenerational policy group.

Among the findings: 59% have at least one grandchild within 50 miles; 39% have one more than 500 miles away; 62% have provided financial support to grandchildren in the past five years, averaging $8,289, primarily for investments and education; 74% babysit or provide care weekly.

Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United, in Washington, D.C., says grandparents who provide care do so because "they want to, and because of the economy." "Grandparents are being asked to help financially and relieve the financial burden of child care, by taking care of their grandchildren," she says. "They have a tendency to be healthier and want to be involved in their grandchildren's lives. They're not as interested in moving away from their families. If anything, they would move to be closer to their grandchildren."

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-09-06/grandparents-support/57611480/1

 

Are We There Yet?

A new survey conducted by Cambria Suites found that kids ask their parents "Are we there yet?" an average of nine times during a weeklong family vacation. Parents with children six-years-old and younger can expect to be asked "Are we there yet?" about 13 times.

Among survey respondents, about half (49 percent) have ever taken a family summer vacation. Of these, nearly one in four adults (24 percent) report that they need a vacation when they return home from a family trip.

Seven percent of respondents said they look forward to a "solo" business trip as a way to recover from a family vacation.

Still, nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents found their family vacation experiences relaxing and admit that there is "nothing better" than a great family vacation.

It seems that in a world full of change, as long as there will be family summer vacations "Are we there yet?" will remain a well-established part of the experience.

Source: MarketWatch
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-in-four-americans-needs-a-vacation-after-a-summer-family-trip-according-to-new-research-from-cambria-suites-2012-06-12

International Study Finds Strong Families Make Successful Children

Strong families are the key to producing well adjusted and successful youngsters and the welfare state has little or no bearing on how children turn out, an international research project has found.

In fact, say the researchers, the children of married parents are likely to do better than those from broken or single-parent families – no matter how much state support the family is given.

The study singled out the British welfare state as an example of the failure of state support to make a difference to the lives and success of children.

The study carried out by researchers at two American universities examined evidence from both Britain and the US – one with a large welfare state, one without – on how the lives of children progress between the ages of five and 13.

It said there were a number of risk factors common to both countries that increased the likelihood that a child would have behavioural problems.

Boys were more likely to have difficulties than girls, health problems led to other difficulties for children, and children of divorced parents faced a greater likelihood of trouble.

In Britain, the study said, the influence of ‘family structure’ – whether a child has its two birth parents, or just one parent, or lives with a step-parent – was more important than in America.

Professor Toby Parcel of North Carolina State University said: "We found that stronger home environments – those that are intellectually stimulating, nurturing, and physically safe – decrease the likelihood of behaviour problems in both the US and Great Britain."

"We wanted to see whether the role of parents was equally important in both societies because the argument has been made that more developed welfare states, such as Great Britain, can make the role of parents less important, by providing additional supports that can help compensate for situations where households have more limited resources.

"This study tells us that parents are important in households, regardless of the strength of the welfare state."

The findings, published in the US in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Source: Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2146426/Strong-families-make-successful-children-nanny-state-says-study.html

One in Four Babies Born to Unmarried Couples

A new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly one in four first-born babies, or 22 percent, are born to unmarried couples living together. The numbers jumped dramatically from 12 percent in 2002.

"More people are cohabitating and more people cohabitating are likely to have children," Gladys Martinez, lead author of the study, told ABCNews.com. "We were surprised by the numbers because it was quite a jump from such a short time, just 10 years ago."

The findings were based on data from more than 23,000 face-to-face interviews with American men and women ages 15 to 44. Men and women with lower education levels were more likely to have more children than people who attended college. Hispanic women were more likely to give birth at an earlier age and have more children than other races, as well.

Experts say a cultural acceptance of having children out-of-wedlock, along with the economic downturn, contribute to the dramatic jump in children born to unmarried couples who live together.

Source: ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/children-born-unwed-couples-rise/story?id=16125007#.T47fR-3lPZG

Troubled Homes May Fuel Obesity in Girls

Girls from troubled homes are more likely to be obese at age 5 than girls from happier ones, new research shows. However, researchers did not find that same association between boys' weight and difficult family situations.

In the study, researchers looked at data on more than 1,600 preschoolers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which tracks the health and well-being of children born to mostly low-income, single-mother families. About half were black, 27 percent were Hispanic and 22 percent were white.

When their children were aged 1 and 3 years, mothers were asked about six stressors: domestic violence, depression, drug abuse, housing insecurity, food insecurity (meaning that their household didn't always have enough nutritious food to eat) and whether the child's father was in prison. Children's height and weight were measured at age 5.

At 5 years old, 17 percent of the children were obese, defined as having a body-mass index in the 95th percentile or above, or being heavier than 95 percent of their peers for their height.

Girls whose mothers reported experiencing two or more stressors when their daughter was age 1 were twice as likely to be obese at age 5. If the mother reported experiencing two or more stressors when the daughter was age 3, the girl was also about twice as likely to be obese.

The study is published in the May issue of Pediatrics.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/04/16/troubled-homes-may-fuel-obesity-in-girls