Fragile Connectedness in Caregiver-Adolescent Relationships: Risk for Diminished Adolescent Well-Being

• In Event: New Perspectives on Parenting: Implications for understanding adaptive and maladaptive family functioning

Abstract

From a developmental perspective, adolescence is a period of immense psychological and physical change that can set a foundation for flourishing and/or psychopathology. Connectedness with caregivers is associated with lower risk for adolescents’ mental health problems (Fosco et al., 2012; Hochgraf et al., 2021; Preston et al., 2016) and supports their positive well-being (Ma & Huebner, 2008). Parent-youth relationships undergo considerable change during the adolescent developmental period; in families where declines in parent-adolescent relationships are especially pronounced – a process referred to as disengagement – adolescents are at elevated risk for maladjustment (Fosco & LoBraico, 2019).

In this study, we focused on adolescent fragile connectedness with caregivers, a dynamic characteristic of the family in which, rather than experiencing a consistent sense of connection with caregivers, adolescents’ feelings of closeness and connection are highly reliant on the day-to-day experiences with caregivers. This strong correspondence between caregivers’ daily positive parenting behaviors and adolescents’ sense of connectedness with caregivers is thought to foreshadow adolescents’ disengagement from their family and a loss of the benefits that accompany a close relationship with caregivers (Fosco & LoBraico, 2019). In the current study, we hypothesized that fragile connectedness would be a risk factor for internalizing psychopathology outcomes (depression, anxiety) and positive well-being (flourishing, psychological well-being), either as a main effect or by moderating the relation between general caregiver-adolescent connectedness and long-term outcomes.

This study presents data from 150 9th and 10th grade adolescents (61.3% girls) in 9th and 10th grade (Mage = 14.61) living in two-caregiver families in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US. Adolescents and caregivers completed a baseline assessment, 21-day daily diary burst, and 1-year follow-up assessment. Adolescents reported on daily connectedness with caregivers, depression, anxiety, psychological well-being, and flourishing. Caregivers reported on daily positive parenting. Fragile connectedness was measured as individual differences in the within-person relations between daily variation in positive parenting and adolescents’ connectedness with caregivers.

We estimated four longitudinal regression models to evaluate whether fragile connectedness was associated with adolescent depression, anxiety, psychological well-being, and flourishing at one-year follow-up. Consistent with past work, we tested average levels of connectedness with caregivers as a moderator of the effects. As shown in Table 1, the effects of fragile connectedness were not evident in relation to depression; but modest effects emerged supporting fragile connectedness as a risk factor for increases in anxiety symptoms (β = .155, p < .05); however, this effect was marginally significant in the context of covariates.

Table 2 reports findings for models predicting positive well-being outcomes. Adolescents who were higher in fragile connectedness with caregivers exhibited decreases in their psychological well-being (β = -.156, p < .05) and in their flourishing (β = -.164, p < .05) over the one-year period. No evidence was found for moderation by average levels of connectedness with caregivers.

These findings underscore adolescent fragile connectedness as a risk factor for diminished well-being and calls for future work further exploring these processes in families.

Authors

• Gregory M Fosco, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• John K. Coffey, Arizona State University