section_path: Social development/Relationships/Family
section_name: Family
paragraph_text: Family
  
  Adolescence marks a rapid change in one's role within a family. Young children tend to assert themselves forcefully, but are unable to demonstrate much influence over family decisions until early adolescence, when they are increasingly viewed by parents as equals. The adolescent faces the task of increasing independence while preserving a caring relationship with his or her parents. When children go through puberty, there is often a significant increase in parent–child conflict and a less cohesive familial bond. Arguments often concern minor issues of control, such as curfew, acceptable clothing, and the adolescent's right to privacy, which adolescents may have previously viewed as issues over which their parents had complete authority. Parent-adolescent disagreement also increases as friends demonstrate a greater impact on one another, new influences on the adolescent that may be in opposition to parents' values. Social media has also played an increasing role in adolescent and parent disagreements. While parents never had to worry about the threats of social media in the past, it has become a dangerous place for children. While adolescents strive for their freedoms, the unknowns to parents of what their child is doing on social media sites is a challenging subject, due to the increasing amount of predators on social media sites. Many parents have very little knowledge of social networking sites in the first place and this further increases their mistrust. An important challenge for the parent–adolescent relationship is to understand how to enhance the opportunities of online communication while managing its risks. Although conflicts between children and parents increase during adolescence, these are just relatively minor issues. Regarding their important life issues, most adolescents still share the same attitudes and values as their parents.
  
  During childhood, siblings are a source of conflict and frustration as well as a support system. Adolescence may affect this relationship differently, depending on sibling gender. In same-sex sibling pairs, intimacy increases during early adolescence, then remains stable. Mixed-sex siblings pairs act differently; siblings drift apart during early adolescent years, but experience an increase in intimacy starting at middle adolescence. Sibling interactions are children's first relational experiences, the ones that shape their social and self-understanding for life. Sustaining positive sibling relations can assist adolescents in a number of ways. Siblings are able to act as peers, and may increase one another's sociability and feelings of self-worth. Older siblings can give guidance to younger siblings, although the impact of this can be either positive or negative depending on the activity of the older sibling.
  
  A potential important influence on adolescence is change of the family dynamic, specifically divorce. With the divorce rate up to about 50%, divorce is common and adds to the already great amount of change in adolescence. Custody disputes soon after a divorce often reflect a playing out of control battles and ambivalence between parents. Divorce usually results in less contact between the adolescent and their noncustodial parent. In extreme cases of instability and abuse in homes, divorce can have a positive effect on families due to less conflict in the home. However, most research suggests a negative effect on adolescence as well as later development. A recent study found that, compared with peers who grow up in stable post-divorce families, children of divorce who experience additional family transitions during late adolescence, make less progress in their math and social studies performance over time. Another recent study put forth a new theory entitled the adolescent epistemological trauma theory, which posited that traumatic life events such as parental divorce during the formative period of late adolescence portend lifelong effects on adult conflict behavior that can be mitigated by effective behavioral assessment and training. A parental divorce during childhood or adolescence continues to have a negative effect when a person is in his or her twenties and early thirties. These negative effects include romantic relationships and conflict style, meaning as adults, they are more likely to use the styles of avoidance and competing in conflict management.
  
  Despite changing family roles during adolescence, the home environment and parents are still important for the behaviors and choices of adolescents. Adolescents who have a good relationship with their parents are less likely to engage in various risk behaviors, such as smoking, drinking, fighting, and/or unprotected sexual intercourse. In addition, parents influence the education of adolescence. A study conducted by Adalbjarnardottir and Blondal (2009) showed that adolescents at the age of 14 who identify their parents as authoritative figures are more likely to complete secondary education by the age of 22—as support and encouragement from an authoritative parent motivates the adolescence to complete schooling to avoid disappointing that parent.