Sunday, December 27, 2009

COULEE CONSUMER: Who is more important to teens -- parents or peers?

In addition, friends are a much-needed source of social support during adolescence and can serve as a protective factor against teen depression and suicide.Parental opportunities to influence their child's friendship choices occur before, as well as throughout, adolescence. Parents can influence their children's friendship choices by where they choose to live, the schools they choose for their children to attend, their parenting practices and the values they instill in their children from the earliest stages of life.All these parental choices can have a powerful and lasting (although indirect) influence on the friends that their children choose during the adolescent years.Parents faced with the unique challenges presented by their child's adolescence can benefit from new knowledge and learning specific to that age period � as well as support from others experiencing similar issues.Stephen Small, human development and family relations specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension and director of the UW-Madison Center for Excellence in Family Studies and Rebecca Mather, a UW-Madison graduate student are conducting a study of parents of preteens and teens age 11-16 who are interested in learning more about raising teenagers.

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