Academic performance of K-12 students in North America could be improved in that the majority of students produce undistinguished results in every international assessment of academic proficiency. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether student's self-discipline and parental involvement in student's academic activities have any impact…

This present study investigated the longitudinal relations between depressive symptoms and achievement goals and whether maternal and paternal rejection moderated these relations. A sample of 436 early adolescents ([X-bar][subscript age] = 13.19, 58.33% girls) filled in scales measuring the depressive symptoms (Time 1), parental rejection (Time 2;…

Few longitudinal studies examine how "changes" in parent-child relationships are associated with changes in youth internalizing problems. In this longitudinal study, we investigated how developmental trends (linear change) and year-to-year lability (within-person fluctuations) in parental warmth and hostility across Grades 6 to 8 predict…

Research has identified at least three patterns of direct involvement in bullying and victimization: bullying, bullying-victimized, and predominantly victimized. However, little is known about risk and protective factors for these patterns. As such, the goals of the present study were to establish these patterns and examine risk and protective…

Most studies of school bullying in China are atheoretical. To fill the gap in the literature, we introduce criminological theories in an attempt to test propositions broadly derived from these perspectives in the study of physical bullying. Relying on data collected from 12 middle schools (Grades 7 to 9) in three cities with information on both…

Children's motivation to master challenging tasks is an important predictor of school success, and yet, such motivation declines during adolescence. It is therefore important to identify ways to intervene to reduce this decline. One malleable factor that is associated with motivation is parenting. The present study used structural equation…

Media Aware Parent is an interactive, web-based program designed to equip parents to communicate with their adolescent child about sexual health and media by enhancing parental communication and media mediation skills, as well as provide them with medically-accurate sexual health knowledge. In a small feasibility study, 56 parents of 7th and 8th…

In this article, we report findings regarding parent communication and daughter's experiences of bullying and victimization in a sample of Hispanic families with seventh-grade daughters. About 57% of daughters reported experiencing any form of victimization and 37% reported engaging in some type of bullying behavior. Overall, the most common type…

This research explored whether experiences with warmth in middle childhood are linked to increased levels of positive affect, decreased levels of negative affect, and decreased levels of disagreeable interactions in text-message communication in adolescence. Participants included 218 children (and their parents and peers) who were on average…

Parent-adolescent sexual and reproductive health (SRH) communication plays an important role in reducing sexual risk behaviour and preventing HIV. We sought to enhance limited information about the unique barriers to parent-adolescent SRH communication in the Arab states. This mixed-methods study, using a two-phase sequential explorative design,…

Under the integrated model of General Strain Theory (GST), the present study sought to examine whether delinquent peer association, social control, and negative emotion moderated the relations of distinctive cyberbullying roles with delinquency, as well as whether the moderating effects varied by gender among a nationally representative sample of…

In the current study, variable- and person-centered approaches were simultaneously adopted to investigate the relations among perceived parental autonomy support and psychological control, the Dark Triad traits, and subjective well-being (SWB) among Chinese adolescents (N = 1,533). Results showed that autonomy support from parents primarily…

Middle school is a risky period, marked by increased peer victimization, and the onset of several mental disorders, including suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs). Parental involvement is critical to students' well-being; however, few studies have examined the role of parental involvement among middle school students or its effect on their…

The present study used a genetically informed design of twins raised in the same family (375 monozygotic and 290 dizygotic twins; 50.2% girls) to examine the association between adolescents' genetic risk for depressive symptoms and the course of the parent-child relationship quality throughout adolescence. Depressive symptoms and the quality of…

Guided by the biopsychosocial model, we examined (a) the prevalence of weight control behaviors (WCBs; i.e., trying to stay the same weight, lose weight, gain weight, or do nothing about weight) among early adolescent boys by race/ethnicity and grade level, and (b) how the boys' perceptions of sociocultural pressures (from parents, peers, and…