Introduction: Leaving home is a significant life transition that effects both emerging adults and their families. The age of leaving home has been increasing across industrialized societies, and children remain dependent on their parents for a longer time. The present study investigated the association between parent-adolescent relationships and timing of leaving home over a timespan of six years: From middle adolescence to emerging adulthood. Methods: Data came from three cohorts of two longitudinal studies in the Netherlands (N = 1100). At the start of the study, participants had a mean age of 16.41 (SD=.71), and approximately half of them (n = 547) were male. Adolescents completed questionnaires on parent-adolescent relationship quality. The impact of positive and negative relationship characteristics on timing of leaving home were examined separately for mothers and fathers. Results: Survival analysis results showed that higher levels of mother's and father's warmth, and higher levels of power attributed to father, but not mother, predicted later timing of leaving home. Higher levels of parental autonomy support predicted earlier timing of leaving home. Conflict with parents was not associated with timing of leaving home, except in the fatherdaughter relationship. Only, the effect of parental warmth on timing of leaving home remained robust when controlling for age, gender, education level, and SES. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that certain parent-adolescent relationship characteristics contribute to the increase in age of leaving home. Parents may be able to prepare their children for a self-sufficient living by balancing warmth and autonomy support they provide during adolescence. Leaving home is a significant life transition since it clearly marks the individuation process for emerging adults (Arnett, 2004). While the age of leaving home has been increasing across industrialized countries, it also shows great diversity (Seiffge-Krenke, 2013), and its determinants are multifaceted. Studies have reported associations between leaving home and cultural background (Kleinepier & De Valk, 2017), gender (Blaauboer & Mulder, 2010), family resources (De Jong Gierveld, Liefbroer, & Beekink, 1991), and other developmental tasks associated with emerging adulthood (Seiffge-Krenke, 2009, 2010), but only few looked at the relation between leaving home and parent-adolescent relationship quality. From a life-course perspective, leaving home is a developmental task that affects not only the emerging adults but the whole family. According to the 'linked lives' principle of this perspective, individuals in a family unit are interdependent (Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003), and leaving home is a family decision (Goldscheider & Goldscheider, 1998). The timing of leaving home is therefore expected to be closely associated with parent-adolescent relationship quality. Little research, however, examined how earlier parent
Although the age of leaving home has increased during the past few decades, senior year in high school remains a significant period during which many adolescents consider moving out, especially to attend university. However, the role of personal, practical and familial factors on adolescents' motivation to leave home prior to the actual transition are still unknown. The current study investigated adolescents' motivation to leave home while they still lived with their parents and its association with adolescentreported personal and practical circumstances, and parent-child relationship quality. Participants were 558 Turkish senior high school students (62% female), all living with their parents in Istanbul, Turkey. Results showed that just above one third of the adolescents (38%) wanted to leave home after high school. Boys, adolescents from high SES and nonintact families were more likely to be motivated to leave home. Satisfaction with living situation, parental support for home-leaving, and importance of practical and personal circumstances influenced adolescents' motivation to leave home. The adolescent-mother relationship was differently related to adolescents' motivation compared to the adolescentfather relationship. Conflict with both parents, but only fathers' warmth was associated with motivation to leave home above and beyond all practical and personal circumstances.
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