The School of Social Work, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;
Andrea Hussong
Department of Psychology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Gregory M. Fosco
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University
Nilam Ram
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University
Acknowledgement: Work on this article was supported by research grants from the National Institutes of Health including Grants R03 DA038685 and R01 DA013709 and from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as well as P2C HD041025 and UL TR000127. Further support was given to Gregory M. Fosco through the Karl R. and Diane Wendle Fink Early Career Professorship for the Study of Families. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the National Institutes of Health.
Parent–youth relationships are reorganized during the adolescent transition as youth individuate from their parents. Longitudinal evidence has suggested that predictable developmental trends exist in parenting behaviors associated with this transition: parental warmth generally decreases and hostility increases during early adolescence (
According to Family Life Cycle Theory (
According to Family Systems Theory (
Parent-child conflict may be a central mechanism by which youth seek autonomy and the parent–youth relationship becomes more egalitarian (
Changes in parental warmth and hostility toward their adolescent can be characterized as two types of change: developmental trends and lability (
In the midst of these overall developmental trends in parental warmth and hostility, parents can also experience lability (
From a family systems perspective (
Together, the complementary information provided by examining both developmental trends and lability in parental warmth and hostility during adolescence can provide a more complete picture of how parenting transforms during the adolescent transition. For example, parents with the same developmental trends might have different indicators of lability (e.g.,
Changes in parental warmth and hostility—both developmental trends and lability—can have important linkages to youth delinquency and substance use. Changes in parental warmth and hostility might influence youth risky behavior via several mechanisms. High warmth from their parents might lead youth to feel safe and protected, which in turn, could help youth learn to self-regulate their stress and affect and decrease risk for externalizing problems (
Thus, developmental trends that reflect increases in parental hostility and decreases in warmth should be linked to higher levels of youth risky behavior, such as delinquency and substance use (
Greater lability in parents’ warmth and hostility should also be associated with increased youth risky behavior. Experiencing very high lability in parental hostility and warmth can be indicative of difficulty with the adolescent transition that may impede youths’ internalization of protective norms and reduce their perceptions of safety, thereby increasing the risk for negative outcomes. Although there are few studies on lability, three recent studies found higher levels of parenting lability to be linked to negative youth outcomes (
However, very low lability in parental warmth and hostility may also be linked to higher levels of youth risky behavior. As previously stated, some lability in parents’ warmth and hostility may be normative as families adapt to new roles. Parents that experience no lability, or very low levels of lability in hostility or warmth may be demonstrating a lack of flexibility to their adolescents’ growing developmental needs. Rigidity in parenting may also be an indicator of difficulty with adapting to new roles. And rigidity in parent–child interactions has been linked to increased risk of youth problem behaviors in other studies (
Given the small amount of literature on lability, more work is needed to expand our understanding of lability across different aspects of parenting—especially lability in the affective aspects of parenting, such as parental hostility and warmth. Further, extant studies have focused primarily on linear linkages between lability and youth outcomes. However, given that both very low and very high levels of lability may be maladaptive, more studies are needed that assess possible quadratic linkages between lability and youth risky behavior.
Changes in parental warmth and hostility might have different linkages to risky behavior for boys and girls. Girls are socialized to be more relationship-oriented than boys, and therefore, might be more strongly affected by changes in parental warmth and hostility than boys (
In addition, the linkages between parental warmth and hostility and youth risky behavior might differ for mothers and fathers. Adolescents, especially daughters, report being closer to their mothers than fathers (
This study examined changes in parents’ warmth and hostility toward their adolescent across Grades 6 to 8 and the associations of these changes with youth risky behavior reported in Grade 9. First, we tested whether lability and developmental trends in parental warmth and hostility predicted later youth delinquency and substance use. We hypothesized that developmental trends characterized by greater decreases in parents’ warmth and greater increases in parents’ hostility would be associated with increased youth delinquency and substance use. We also expected that, even when controlling for developmental trends, greater lability in parents’ warmth and hostility (more fluctuations) would be associated with more youth delinquency and substance use. However, we expected the linkages between lability and youth risky behavior to be quadratic, with very high and low levels of lability associated with higher levels of youth risky behavior—and moderate levels of lability associated with lower levels of risky behavior (e.g., a U-shaped relationship between lability and youth risky behavior). Second, we tested whether the linkages between lability and youth risky behavior differed by youth gender, hypothesizing that the associations between lability and youth risky behavior would be stronger for girls than boys.
We examined youth and parent reports of lability in mothers’ and fathers’ warmth and hostility separately, which allowed us to investigate parent gender differences as well as differences by whether parenting was reported by parents or youth. We ran separate models for parental warmth and hostility because positive and negative experiences between parents and youth are often conceptualized as distinct constructs (
This analysis used data obtained from a sample of early adolescents in two-parent homes and their parents who participated in at least three of four waves of in-home data collection as part of the PROSPER project (Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience;
To maintain precision in our measurement of lability, analyses were limited to those families in which youth and parents provided three or more waves of data on a particular dyadic relationship (e.g., youth and mothers both reported on maternal hostility for three or more waves). Given our interest in both mother and father warmth and hostility, our analytic sample was limited to two-parent homes. We also removed parents where the reporter changed across waves: 25 fathers were removed because the reporter changed from biological father to stepfather; six mothers were removed because the reporter changed from biological mother to stepmother. Thus, our final sample included 618 families with 598 mothers and 476 fathers.
The demographics of the analytic sample at Wave 1 are as follows. Youth (52% female) resided in Iowa (61%) and Pennsylvania (39%), and were, on average, 11 years-old (SD = .49) at Wave 1. The mothers’ mean age was 38.8 years (SD = 5.58) and fathers was 41.08 years (SD = 6.75). Average household income in 2003 was $58,738 and 60% of parents had some postsecondary education. Households had an average of three children (SD = 1.56). The majority of youth (68%) were living with both biological parents. Eleven percent of fathers were stepparents, and 1% of mothers were stepparents. Less than 2% were adoptive parents (1.6% of fathers; 1.2% mothers). Most youth were Caucasian (90%), Hispanic (4%), African American (2%), Native American (1%), Asian (1%), and other (3%).
Measures were adapted from the Iowa Youth and Families Project (
Parental hostility
Youth and parent perceptions of parental hostility toward their adolescent were measured using three items (e.g., “How often did you and this child have serious arguments?”) that were answered on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from never (1) to always (7). Higher scores indicated greater levels of parental hostility toward the adolescent. Across reporters and waves, average Cronbach’s alpha was .83 (range .77–.91).
Parental warmth
Youth and parent perceptions of parental warmth toward their adolescent were measured using three items (e.g., “How often did you act loving and affectionate towards this child?”) that were answered on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from never (1) to always (7). Across reporters and waves, average Cronbach’s alpha was .86 (range .77–.98).
Delinquency
Youth involvement in deviant behaviors in the past 12 months was assessed using 12 items that measured behaviors such as whether the youth had taken something worth less than $25 or physically fought with someone out of anger. Responses were dichotomized (0 = never, 1 = once or more) and summed as a total delinquency score (α = .90).
Tobacco use
Two dichotomous items asked about lifetime cigarette use (i.e., ever smoked cigarettes) and cigarette use in the past month. Responses (0 = no; 1 = yes) were summed to create an index of tobacco use (α = .74).
Polysubstance initiation
Initiation of polysubstances was assessed by asking participants to indicate whether they had ever used seven different substances (e.g., cigarettes, ecstasy, glue, Vicodin). Responses were coded (0 = no; 1 = yes) and summed (α = .77).
Control variables
Control variables included demographic variables that were associated with youth risky behavior in prior literature (
Our data analysis proceeded through three steps. In Step 1, we derived individual scores for each person’s intercept, developmental trend, and lability. To derive these scores, we modeled parental warmth and hostility using a linear growth model (
The linear growth model provided a superior or equivalent fit to the four-occasion data than the quadratic model for most of the measures (lower AIC, BIC). Fit statistics are given in
We then used these linear growth models to obtain person-specific scores for the intercept, developmental trend, and lability for each person in our sample using Proc Mixed in SAS, following procedures described by
Individuals higher in lability had relatively large deviations from their estimated developmental trends in parental warmth across waves, whereas those lower in lability had relatively small deviations from the estimated trends. The same steps were used to derive scores for parental hostility.
We decomposed the total variance into components (
In Step 2, we used Poisson regression to examine the association of lability in parental warmth and hostility with Grade 9 measures of youth risky behavior (e.g., substance use, delinquency). Predictors included the three change scores derived from the growth model (i.e., level, developmental trend, and lability score) and control variables. Because we hypothesized the linkages between lability and youth risky behavior would be U-shaped, we also included a quadratic term for lability (lability score*lability score). The Poisson model was:
Because lability scores were moderately correlated with the level of parental warmth and hostility, additional analyses were run to investigate the potential role of multicollinearity. For each model, we calculated the variance inflation factor (VIF), which assesses the extent to which the standard error of model estimates are inflated due to multicollinearity. The VIF ranged from 1.18 to 1.63, which is well below the recommended cutoff value of 10 (see
Third, we tested whether the relations between lability and each risky behavior differed by youth gender. We tested for moderation for the main effect of lability by gender by including a genderi * labilityi interaction variable in each Poisson regression model. We also tested whether the quadratic effect of lability was moderated by youth gender by adding a genderi * labilityi * labilityi interaction term to our model.
Results from the growth models of mothers’ and fathers’ warmth and hostility and descriptive statistics are shown in
Descriptive statistics for our derived study variables (e.g., each individuals’ level, developmental trend, and lability score) and youth outcomes are shown in
Similar patterns were seen for mothers. More lability in mothers’ warmth was associated with lower levels of warmth (youth-report r = −.53; mother-report r = −.37) and steeper decreases in warmth (youth-report r = −.35; mother-report r = −.27). Higher lability in mothers’ hostility was associated with higher levels of hostility (youth report r = .61; mother-report r = .34) but had different associations with developmental trends based on reporter (youth report r = .15; mother-report r = −.10). Lability in mothers’ and fathers’ warmth was significantly associated with youth risky behavior according to youth report but not parent reports. Lability in mothers’ and fathers’ hostility was associated with youth risky behavior according to youth and mother, though not father, reports.
Father models
Poisson regressions were used to examine the associations between fathers’ developmental trends and lability scores and youth risky behavior (
Some of the linkages between lability and youth risky behavior were quadratic in nature (See
A similar quadratic pattern characterized the association between youth-reported lability in fathers’ warmth and hostility and youth delinquency (α2 = −.98 warmth, −.90 hostility). Lability in father self-reports on their warmth and hostility exhibited no significant linkages to youth risky behavior.
Developmental trends in father’s warmth and hostility were also associated with some youth outcomes. Greater declines in youth-reported fathers’ warmth (α3 = −1.71) and greater increases in hostility (α3 = 1.71) were also associated with greater youth delinquency. Greater increases in father-reported hostility was associated with greater youth delinquency (α3 = 9.76).
Mother models
In models focusing on mothers (see
Similar to fathers, some of the linkages between mothers’ lability and youth risky behavior were quadratic in nature and showed inverted U-shape patterns of association. For example, moderate levels of lability in youth reports of hostility predicted higher risk for polysubstance use initiation relative to low and high levels of lability (α2 = −.58). Again, similar to our father models, most youth had low lability scores. Therefore, for most youth in our sample, greater lability in mother’s hostility was associated with greater substance use. Similar patterns were found for associations between lability in mothers’ hostility and warmth and delinquency (for youth-reported warmth quadratic effects, α2 = −1.02; mother-reported warmth, α2 = −2.44; and youth-reported hostility, α2 = −.59).
Developmental trends in mothers’ warmth and hostility were also associated with youth risky behavior. Greater decreases in mothers’ warmth were associated with greater delinquency according to both youth (α3 = −.60) and mother (α3 = −2.51) reports. Greater increases in mothers’ hostility were associated with greater polysubstance use (youth reports α3 = .62) and delinquency (youth reports α3 = 3.31, mother reports α3 = 2.73).
Youth gender did not moderate the linkages between lability in either parenting construct and tobacco use or polysubstance use initiation. However, many of the associations between youth and parent reported lability in parental warmth and hostility and youth delinquency were moderated by youth gender (see
In our father models, youth gender moderated the linear and quadratic linkages between youth-reported lability in fathers’ warmth and delinquency (α10 = −1.66, α11 = 1.86) as well as youth-reported father hostility (α10 = −2.00, α11 = 3.12). Follow-up tests revealed that youth-reported lability in fathers’ hostility had significant linear and quadratic linkages to delinquency for girls (linear α1 = 1.71, SE = .52, p < .001; quadratic α2 = −2.81, SE = .73, p < .001) but not boys (linear α1 = −.29, SE = .37, p = ns; quadratic α2 = .31, SE = .56, p = ns). Similar patterns were found for youth-reported lability in fathers’ warmth, with significant linkages for girls (linear α1 = 1.34, SE = .44, p < .001; quadratic α2 = −2.17, SE = .58, p < .01) but not boys (linear α1 = −.31, SE = .30, p = ns; quadratic, α2 = .32, SE = .49, p = ns). Quadratic effects for girls were similar to those shown in
In our mother models, youth gender moderated the effects of youth-reported lability in mothers’ hostility (α10 = −1.09, α11 = 2.11) with follow-up tests revealing that lability had quadratic linkages to girls’ delinquency (quadratic α2 = −1.43, SE = .48, p < .01) but not boys (quadratic α2 = .68, 1.43, SE = .46, p = ns). Similar to other models, for girls, these quadratic effects demonstrated an inverted U-shaped pattern. Youth gender also moderated the linear linkages between mother-reported lability in hostility and youth delinquency (α10 = −2.02). Follow-up tests revealed that mother-reported lability in hostility had linear associations with delinquency for girls (linear α1 = 1.79, SE = .53, p = .007) but not boys (linear α1 = .23, SE = .49, p = ns) and neither girls nor boys had a significant quadratic component. Youth gender did not moderate the linkages between mother-reported warmth and delinquency.
During early adolescence, family relationships and interaction patterns are likely to change in response to youths’ changing developmental needs (
Our study confirms prior work that developmental changes in parent–youth relationships have important linkages to youth risky behavior (
Our study findings also suggest that (a) an additional type of change—lability—might be occurring in these families; and (b) capturing fluctuations in parent–youth warmth and hostility from year-to-year is important to understanding the transition to early adolescence. Our decomposition of variance (
Importantly, in our study, lability in warmth and hostility were linked to youth substance use, although the nature of these relations were nuanced. In general, greater lability in mother and father warmth (according to youth reports) was associated with elevated risk for youth tobacco use and polysubstance use. Greater lability in father hostility was also associated with greater tobacco use. Perhaps high lability in parental warmth indicates difficulty with a healthy reorganization of the parent–child relationship to accommodate autonomy at the transition to adolescence. Such lability may impede the internalization of positive norms that may prevent substance use, or may create a stressful family environment that may lead youth to seek out affiliations with deviant peer groups, thereby increasing the risk of substance use (
Interestingly, lability in youth-reported mother and father hostility had complex relationships with polysubstance use initiation. The highest rates of polysubstance use were found among youth who experienced moderate levels of lability in parental hostility. Lower rates of substance use were found for youth who experienced very little or very high levels of lability in hostility—which was contradictory to our hypothesis. Low levels of hostility lability, which we hypothesized may reflect parental rigidity, were not associated with more substance use, as we hypothesized. Instead in our models, very low levels of lability were associated with low levels of substance use. Thus, experiencing only a very small amount of lability in hostility may promote a sense of safety for youth in their family, leading to an increased capacity to self-regulate and to the internalizing of protective norms about substance use (
Girls in particular appear to be affected by lability in parental warmth and hostility. Lability in youth-reported father warmth and hostility and youth-reported mother hostility were linked to greater delinquency for girls but not boys. These findings support those reported in other studies that have found linkages between lability in parenting and delinquency for girls but not boys (
Our study integrated reports on parenting from both parents and youth. Youth reports of lability had more robust linkages to youth risky behavior than parent reports. For example, in our father models, youth reports of lability with fathers were consistently linked to youth risky behavior whereas father reports were not. Fathers may be less aware of their emotional state and fluctuations in their behaviors toward their children, which may be one reason for our lack of father findings (
In one of our models, youth and mothers had different patterns of association: Youth reports of lability in mothers’ warmth were positively associated with substance use, whereas mother reports of lability in mothers’ warmth were negatively associated with substance use. It is possible that mothers who report high lability in warmth are more likely to encourage youth autonomy development which may be protective against substance use. Prior studies on lability have focused solely on youth reports of parenting, making it difficult to place this finding in the broader literature. Given this finding is distinct from others in this study, replication is clearly needed. Additional studies that examine predictors and outcomes of discrepancies between parents and youth reports of lability may also help shed light on these reporter differences.
This study has a number of limitations. First, as we studied primarily Caucasian rural adolescents living in Pennsylvania and Iowa, these findings may not be generalizable to other cultural groups or youth living in urban settings. Second, we did not have data on youth puberty, an important factor that may mark the early adolescent transition and that has been linked with more lability in parent–child relationships in other studies (
This study illustrates the utility of assessing changes in parenting during adolescence both in terms of developmental trends and the degree to which parenting behaviors exhibit lability. Our findings suggest that linear trends and lability in parental warmth and hostility have different implications for adolescent risky behavior, depending on the gender of both the adolescent and the parent. Both types of change occurred during the early adolescent period and both had important linkages to youth behaviors. Lability in parental warmth and hostility was particularly relevant for youth delinquency and substance use, especially among girls. For most youth, higher lability was linked to more risky behavior. However, youth in families with very high amounts of lability may be less likely to engage in risky behavior. More studies are needed to understand lability and conditions that predict it and that moderate its impacts on youth risky behavior.
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Submitted: November 16, 2016 Revised: June 6, 2017 Accepted: July 10, 2017