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

AuthorSandra Simpkins,Jill Bowers,Hyeyoung Kang,Marcela Raffaelli,Lorraine Munoz
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12247
Published date01 April 2017
Date01 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

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