A Parental Paradox for Black Girls.

• Position: JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM

For black girls in the juvenile justice system, attention from a caregiver might amount to too much of a bad thing, suggests a study at Ohio State University, Columbus. Though parental attentiveness generally would be considered beneficial to troubled youths, the finding hints at the possibility that a history of trauma in a household's adults may filter down to younger generations, researchers indicate.

The study, examining how family and peer social support influenced post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in black girls who are in detention, found that lower self-esteem, less optimism about the future, and higher negative behaviors by peers are associated with greater PTSD symptoms in these girls, but one more factor also correlates with those symptoms: a higher level of caregiver support.

"This finding really pushed me to focus on parents and the girls, because initially it was just the girls," says lead author Camille R. Quinn, assistant professor of social work. "So, I started digging, and research I found explained how this could be an intersection between moms and girls. If mom had a history of violence, how she coped or didn't cope with that trauma influenced the girls.

More and more, I saw that this described parents with experiences of not just present-day, but historical, trauma, and if they had a limited ability to resolve or heal, that would dictate their...