When parents try to protect their children from financial hardship, they may be doing their children a favor. Teens’ views about their families’ financial hardships have implications for their mental health and behavior.
This is the main finding of a recent study I conducted with colleagues on household income and child development.
As a psychology professor, I know there is a lot of research showing that young people who experience more family economic hardship tend to have more problem behaviors.
However, most research on this issue relies heavily on caregiver reports, that is, what adults say about their children. Few researchers have asked the young people themselves.
To fill this gap, my colleagues and I asked more than 100 Pittsburgh-area teenagers and their parents about their family income, opinions about financial challenges, and mental health. We contacted them many times over a period of 9 months.
When I did this, I realized a few important things. First, we found that many families’ financial situations change over time. Some months I had money, and other months I struggled. And second, we found that when teens said they or their families were experiencing difficulties, those teens had more behavioral problems.
For example, many teens said their caregivers were worried because they couldn’t afford school supplies or didn’t have money to buy necessities. During the months that teens reported experiencing these difficulties, they were more likely to be depressed and have trouble at school.
why is it important
While other researchers have found that economic hardship is associated with differences in parenting, academic achievement, and many other developmental outcomes, prior research has limited the complexity faced by families facing hardship. We do not always grasp the challenges and problems.
For example, researchers studying the association between economic hardship and youth behavioral development have historically examined family income on an annual basis. But bills are due weekly or monthly. Our research shows that if we look only at annual data, we risk missing important parts of the story. That means many families are experiencing short-term financial instability.
Our research also shows that teens are deeply affected by their financial situation in their daily lives and understand their family’s situation. This has important implications for research. Given that adolescence is a time of profound emotional and cognitive change, our team believes that researchers should center the perspectives of young people directly affected by economic challenges. thinking about. For example, we previously found that how young people view stress and support in their lives can influence brain development.
This research also has important implications for public policy. For example, lawmakers assume that economic hardship is fairly stable and set anti-poverty policies accordingly. Our research provides new evidence that many people experience large fluctuations in income throughout the year. This type of financial instability has been shown to impact children’s development, especially when families have lost large amounts of income. To reduce the impact of poverty, policymakers may need to think more dynamically about economic hardship.
what’s next
Our research team wants to continue to bring young people’s voices to the forefront. We are also interested in more complex ways of understanding socio-economic status. We know that income is important for families, but we are increasingly focusing on household assets: household assets minus debts. Wealth can affect children’s development differently than income. We have just begun collecting data for a new project investigating how both of these factors affect the mental health of her teens.
Research Briefs are short summaries of interesting academic research.
