Parental Participation in the Process of Youth Joining a Program: Perspectives from Adolescents and Parents

• Author: Sandra Simpkins,Jill Bowers,Hyeyoung Kang,Marcela Raffaelli,Lorraine Munoz
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12247
• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Date: 01 April 2017

H K Binghamton University

M R, J B,  L M University of Illinois at Urbana

Champaign

S S University of California at Irvine

Parental Participation in the Process of Youth

Joining a Program: Perspectives from Adolescents

and Parents

Objective: This study examined the nature and

extent of parental participation in the process of

adolescents joining an organized program and

identify factors underlying variations in overar-

ching patterns of participation.

Background: Adolescents become increasingly

interested in making their own choices and

decisions. Thus, families must balance parental

goals and adolescents’ desire for autonomy in

their social activities.

Method: Interviews were conducted with 62

adolescent programparticipants and 52 parents.

Data analyses followed an inductive approach

to identify emergent patterns in the data.

Results: We identied four roles parents played

at the time their adolescent joined a program:

emotional supporter, manager, informant, and

instrumental supporter. Further, analyses re-

vealed variations in roles and level of involve-

ment related to adolescent age and ethnicity,

as well as gaps between adolescent and parent

perspectives. Overarchingvariations in parental

Department of Human Development, Binghamton Univer-

sity, State Universityof New York, PO Box 6000, Bingham-

ton, NY 13902 (hkang@binghamton.edu).

KeyWords:Adolescent–parent decision making, extracurric-

ular participation, family processes, positive youth develop-

ment.

engagement (the extent to which parents exerted

inuence during the joining process) werelinked

to parent, adolescent, and program factors.

Conclusion: Findings indicate that a multitude

of factors intersect and shape whether and how

parents attempt to inuence the joining process

and manage adolescents’ social activities.

Implications: Our ndings can be used by

program administrators and youth leaders to

strengthen outreach and recruitmentefforts with

adolescents from ethnically and socioeconomi-

cally diverse family backgrounds.

Organized youth programs provide important

developmental contexts for adolescents in the

United States. In 2014, nearly one in four

US families (23%) had a child enrolled in an

after-school program, and others participated

in weekend or summer activities (Afterschool

Alliance, 2014). Participation in such programs

contributes to adolescents’ socioemotional de-

velopment and affords them opportunities to

explore interests and develop skills in relatively

safe environments (Vandell, Larson, Mahoney,

& Watts,2015). Parents often recognize the ben-

ets of organized programs and draw on them

for their children to achieve important goals

(e.g., matriculation in college; acquisition of

258 Family Relations 66 (April 2017): 258–272

DOI:10.1111/fare.12247