The Transition to Adolescence: the Role of Gender and Stress in Problem Behavior and Competence

Abstract

The differential change of boys and girls across pre-adolescence, early adolescence, and middle adolescence was examined. The participants were 259 children, their mothers, and their social studies teachers. The children completed a measure of internalizing problems and adults completed measures of the child's externalizing and internalizing problems and competence. Relative to girls, boys had more problems and less competence at pre-adolescence and/or less problems and more competence by mid-adolescence. A stressor, parental divorce, did not exacerbate the gender by developmental age period interaction. The differential vulnerability of boys and girls at different developmental periods is considered.

The trials of childhood: The development, reliability, and validity of the daily life stressors scale

“…The findings fi'om the present study parallel those from Forehand, Neighbors, and Wierson (1991), who found that boys displayed more internalizing behavior problems than girls at preadolescence, although this was conversely true at early adolescence. A similar finding was shown here for daily stress.…”

Mediators of the Relation Between Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Child Internalizing and Disruptive Behavior Disorders.

“…We chose to study mediation as youth transition into early adolescence (Grades 5-6, as defined by Forehand, Neighbors, & Wierson, 1991), This age period was chosen in part because it marks a time of change and transition that can negatively influence individuals (Simmons, Burgeson, Carlton-Ford, & Blyth, 1987) and is associated with an increase in problems (Petersen & Hamburg, 1986 (Montemayor, 1986).…”

“…Stress is another aspect of the family context that is likely to be heightened among children of mothers with depressive symptoms. Prior to the development of depression or conduct disorder, youth have been found to report the presence of more stressful life events (Goodyer, Wright, & Altham, 1988;Hastings, Anderson, & Kelley, 1996).We chose to study mediation as youth transition into early adolescence (Grades 5-6, as defined by Forehand, Neighbors, & Wierson, 1991), This age period was chosen in part because it marks a time of change and transition that can negatively influence individuals (Simmons, Burgeson, Carlton-Ford, & Blyth, 1987) and is associated with an increase in problems (Petersen & Hamburg, 1986 (Montemayor, 1986).The first proposed mediator in this study is mother-child communication. Parents play a pivotal role in their children's social and emotional competence by coaching, teaching, and nurturing developing skills (e.g., Parke, MacDonald, Beitel, & Bhavnagri, 1988).…”

Poly-Victimization and Risk of Posttraumatic, Depressive, and Substance Use Disorders and Involvement in Delinquency in a National Sample of Adolescents

“…Finkelhor et al surveyed both preadolescents and adolescents [13,14]. Characteristics specific to adolescence [27,28] may increase risk (e.g., HPA axis reactivity, increased substance use) or be protective (e.g., corticolimbic maturation). Therefore, latent class analyses (LCA) were conducted with data from a representative sample of United States adolescents to replicate and extend prior poly-victimization research.…”