As good old Leo Tolstoy famously wrote: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
What did he mean by this?
Probably that happy families are too boring and cheesy to write about.
The chaos and complexities of unhappy families make for great fiction, gossip or sociological research.
Certainly, if you have an endlessly fractious relationship with your teenage children, it’s hard to know where to begin making peace.
The courts are full of sad stories
If you have a truly dysfunctional household – marred by mental illness, substance abuse, poverty or family violence – your kids are up against it.
How often, when someone is being convicted for senseless violence, does the defendant cite a wretched childhood? We hear this all the time.
On the flip side, we hear less about what makes for a happier family. And what makes for healthier young adults.
Accumulating evidence
In a major study from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, more than 10,000 adolescents were followed over a period of more than a decade.
In the early part of the study, in the 1990s, when the participants were between 12 and 17 years old, they answered questions about various aspects of their relationships with their parents.
Specifically, they reported:
- What they enjoyed warm from their mother and father
- The style and relative success of communication with parents
- How much time they spend together
- Academic expectations
- Whether or not the parents deployed inductive discipline as a strategy for dealing with problematic behaviour.
In short, inductive discipline is essentially laying down the law via reasoning and discussion. It’s a reportedly successful strategy through which a child develops self-discipline and comes to understand the consequences of their own actions.
The results
A decade after the initial phase of the research, when the participants were 24 to 32 years old, they reported their challenges as adults.
The researchers asked about levels of stress, depression, optimism, nicotine dependence and substance abuse, and other measures of general health.
In line with previous research, the researchers found that “adolescents who reported strong relationships with their parents later reported significantly higher levels of good general health in young adulthood”.
Dr Carol A. Ford is head of adolescent medicine at Philadelphia, and senior study author.
In a prepared statement, she said: “The overall pattern of these results suggests strong relationships between adolescents and their mothers and fathers leads to better health and wellbeing in young adulthood.”
These healthier young adults also reported “significantly higher levels of optimism and romantic relationship quality, and lower levels of stress and depressive symptoms”.
How to benefit from this research
The authors suggest that “investments in improving parent-adolescent relationships could help improve general health, mental health and sexual, health while also reducing substance use in young adulthood”.
Certainly, the study identifies the ingredients for a healthier parent-adolescent relations.
For people who can afford it, and foster the goodwill, a program based on the study findings could open a pathway for making a happier childhood home.
For deeply troubled families, not so easy. The resources aren’t there, and the damage tends to cut deep.
One pressing question: is ‘warmth’ something you can teach?
