Peers and parents in adolescent development

The social support surrounding a child has a significant role in the ways he or she develops into adolescence and adulthood. Certain elements in the environment will help a child be well-adjusted, and a well-adjusted childhood will make it far more likely to become a socially apt and comfortable adult. Many different elements are significant in this equation of childhood and adolescent influences. The culture of the child's family and community, socio-economic situations and concerns, academic achievements and interests, and countless other complex variables must be taken into consideration. One of the factors that might seem very simple to account for are the influences of parents and peers. However, closer inspection reveals the complexity of this influence. What parental decisions and actions actually influence the development of a child to a significant degree? What peer interactions will influence a child as he develops? Which of these social groups -- parents or peers -- actually have more power to mold a child into a particular shape and life? This question has been approached by many researchers, and further research into parental and peer influences seems to further complicate the subject as quickly as light is shed.

Mirka van Beest addressed several important questions regarding the influence of both parents and peers in the life of adolescents in the article, "The Relationship Between Adolescents' Social Support from Parents and from Peers" from the journal Adolescence. Beest identified social support as having several different necessary factors. Emotional support, one of the factors of social support, includes in Beest's definition activities like personal comfort, sympathetic listening, and considering concerns. Practical support, on the other hand, includes providing help with homework or other more utilitarian activities. In either case, attempted support may not actually be perceived as such by an adolescent (or any individual) for a number of reasons, which can be seen as part of the reason that peer support is vital to adolescents. Peers may be able to offer support that is more emotionally digestible than what is offered by parents because of the role of perception. Many parents may believe they are offering positive social support for their children when they are in fact isolating that child from them, for example when parents insist on interfering with the influence of peers. (Zeijl)

Beest's research of previous works found support for the hypothesis that adolescents will seek support from their peers if there is a lack of parental support, and that adolescents will develop a stronger relationship with peers when there are more problems in the family. "Although adults appear to be the main source of support for children, it has been shown that other children can provide support and help buffer stress....When a child has lost both parents, peers can offer emotional security, which indicates that they can function as substitutes when parental support is lacking." (Beest) Adolescents is naturally a time when children begin to increasingly rely on peers for support, as well as a time when they begin to distance themselves from parents. Children will select an environment that is most compatible with their own needs, and for many children their peers offer a more comfortable support group than their parents. (Pilgrim)

However, other research has shown that peer support cannot replace or compensate for parental support. Instead, Beest's other research has "indicated that the influence of peers is limited to certain areas, especially leisure, while parents are more important in terms of personal relations and school...Parental support is often more important for adolescents than is peer support." (Beest) In other cases, it has been the conclusion of many researchers that if an adolescent does not receive (on an actual or perceptual level) support from parents, they will not be able to get social support from other sources either. Many adolescents who do not get support in the family will learn instead to solve problems and deal with issues alone, and many become socially or psychologically maladjusted when a lack of support is perceived from parents. Academically, for example, "higher-ability girls receive [or perceive] more support and encouragement, which result in greater self-confidence and achievement. In contrast, the less supportive environment experienced by lower-ability students only exacerbates their already more tenuous situation." (Love) Poor academic achievement is one example of such maladjustment that may occur.

Female adolescents (as well as children and adults) rely on others for social support more often than males do. (Beest) Additionally, females experience more emotional support from their mothers than from their fathers. Male adolescents report feeling more support from their fathers, however, so it can be seen that it is important for adolescents to have support from both parents. Females also report stronger peer support than males, and females more often find their "best friend" within their own school than males. However, gender cannot be considered a predictor in and of itself, despite these common trends. "Gender, role relationships, and self-esteem are not as powerful predictors of outcomes in specific feedback transactions as are more proximal characteristics within the immediate episode, i.e., specific characteristics of the feedback transmitted and recipient's affective responses." (Lundgren) Beest's own study concluded that adolescents do not necessarily compensate for a lack of parental support through peers, and in fact doing so may be quite difficult or impossible. However, Beest did not find that most adolescents become incapable of seeking support from peers if there is not parental support. This inability to seek proper social support from peers or others does become reality for adolescents in extreme circumstances, such as outright abuse.

Other psychologists disagree with the assumption that parental support is the most important and influential on children. According to Judith Rich Harris in the book The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, the socialization of children is far more reliant on peer interaction than parental. Harris argues that the "nurture assumption" focused on the influence of parents has been based on inaccuracies in studies and many false pretenses. "Most child development studies lack controls for parent-child genetic overlap, leading researchers to interpret a boy's aggressively as being due to harsh parenting when it is just as likely that he and his father are both suffering from the same inherited impulsive disposition. Similarly, while firm and consistent parenting might foster greater maturity in children, investigators typically fail to point out that the cause and effect may operate in reverse--that is, even-tempered, compliant children may make rule enforcement easier for parents." (Efran) Harris points out that researchers often look for the easiest and cheapest ways of collecting and interpreting data, even if they are not the most accurate or complete. It is simple to blame parents as default for every social problem; "Poor parental supervision and monitoring, harsh and! or inconsistent disciplinary practices, infrequent parent-adolescent communication, and poor parent-adolescent relations" (Paschall) can be applied to every delinquent teenage situation. Many others automatically assume that peers are always a negative influence while parents are a positive influence; the image of the "good" teenager is at home with his or her parents, while the "bad" teenager is out giving in to peer pressure. (Urberg)

The actual impact and influence that a parent will have on a child simply cannot be predicted. Certainly, extreme cases of abuse or neglect will likely affect the personality into adulthood, however the way in which that impact will manifest will vary significantly. Harris instead offers "groups socialization theory" as an alternative to the traditional nurture theories. "A child's identity is molded primarily by peer and community influences. According to this theory, parental teachings matter mainly when young children are at home. Once they are out and about, the voices of peers prevail." (Efran) This means that children who spend a great deal of time away from the parents, due to school, daycare, sports, extracurricular activities, and other time with friends or other peers, will be more influenced by peers than parents overall. These "peer effects" (Hoxby) may be the most significant influences.