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Lead: How can support from parents of adolescent mothers not be beneficial to development of the infant and mother?
Brief Synopsis
Although the numbers of teen pregnancies have decreased significantly in the last few years, the services for teen mothers and families have just begun to be refined. With the new welfare laws that teenagers and their children must live at home or in a shelter until the age of 18, adolescent girls and their babies seem to be much better off living at home with the grandparents. Home visiting programs such as the Healthy Families Program, however, find that adolescent mothers may have poor communication skills and bad relationships with their parents. In addition, feeding, nutritional, and disciplinary requirements have changed so much even in the past 15-20 years; parents of teenage girls with infants often are not up-to-date on current child development findings. Healthy Families combats these child-raising problems by educating the entire family system on parenting skills, communication, and critical thinking with the long-term goal of decreasing child abuse & neglect, continuing education for the adolescent, and prevention of repeat teenage pregnancies.
Program
Greater Brockton Healthy Families Programs
Sibyl Kepness, Program Director
486 Forest Ave.
Brockton, MA 02301
(508) 894-8543
Story Contact
Sibyl Kepness, Program Director
Greater Brockton Healthy Families Programs
486 Forest Ave.
Brockton, MA 02301
(508) 894-8543
Expert Contacts
Susan J. Kelley
Professor of Nursing
Georgia State University
Ph: (414) 651-3043
nursjk@gsu.edu
Kelley is an expert on caregiver stress in grandparents raising grandchildren.
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, PhD
Virginia & Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development and Education
Teachers College, Columbia University
525 West 120th Street, New York 10027
212-678-3904
Email: jb224@columbia.edu
Dr. Brooks-Gunn specializes in child and parent human development.
Background
- In a study of 79 adolescent mothers that examined the relationships among grandmother co-residence, parenting, and early child development with teen mothers, it was found that mothers displayed more warmth towards the child when not living with the grandmother. Among adequately growing children, grandmother co-residence was associated with better motor skills, although among failure to thrive children, grandmother co-residence was associated with lower motor skills. Conclusions show that although multigenerational families may be protective for some teen parents and their young children, grandmother co-residence was not associated with maternal warmth. (Black, Maureen M. and Nitz, Katherine (Mar 1996). Grandmother co-residence, parenting, and child development among low-income, urban teen mothers. Journal of Adolescent Health. Vol. 18 (3), 218-226).
- "The adolescent's behavior was the most positively affected when she felt she had a close family which she could count on for help: when she felt that she could talk to her parents, when her parents treated her like an adult, and when there was no conflict over the way the adolescent was raising her child." (Colletta, N.D. (1981). Social support and the risk of maternal rejection by adolescent mothers. The Journal of Psychology. 109, 191-197).
- "Teenage mothers (13-19 years) who received home visits from birth to 6 months postpartum were more likely to return to school and less likely to repeat pregnancy than controls at 2 years postpartum." (Field, T.M., Widmayer, W.M., & Ignatoff, E. (1980). Teenage, lower class, black mothers and their preterm infants: An intervention and developmental follow-up. Child Development, 51, 426-436).
- "Girls who had experienced the divorce of their parents between the ages of seven and 16 were almost twice as likely to become teenage mothers as those whose parents remained married." (Johnston, Philip (Sep. 9, 1998). Teenage mothers face risks with children. The Daily Telegraph.)
- One study through Columbia University on an intergenerational program for pregnant and parenting adolescents found that adolescents who had attended the program with their mothers were significantly less likely to drop out of school and had significantly better self esteem. (Roye, Carol F. & Balk, Sophie J. (Jan-Mar 1996). Evaluation of an intergenerational program for pregnant and parenting adolescents. Maternal-Child Nursing Journal. Vol. 24 (1), 32-40).
- "Research has documented that teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of high school, be more socially isolated, develop inadequate job skills, have high unemployment rates, have increased health risks, have early and/or forced marriages, have a higher probability for divorce, and have lower self-esteem." (Samuels, V.J. et al. (1994). Adolescent mothers' adjustment to parenting. Journal of Adolescence. 17, 427-443).
- "The more types of support a grandmother provided, the more optimal was her daughter's behavior with her infant, although counter to our prediction, the more types of support the grandmother provided was related to the more negative experience of parenting. Thus, while a grandmother who is highly involved with her daughter's life may help her be a better parent, the young woman may not necessarily enjoy the process. This paradoxical role of the grandmother has been suggested in other reports. Unger and Wandersman (1985) found that adolescent mothers with more relatives living nearby experienced less life satisfaction and more parenting anxiety but nevertheless demonstrated more positive parenting behavior. They suggested that even though adolescents learn better parenting from older family members, the advice may be perceived as intrusive. Well-intended and effective support from the maternal grandmother can easily be experienced as interference by the adolescent mother (68)." (Voight, J.D., Hans, S.L., & Bernstein, V.J. (Spring 1996). Support Networks of Adolescent Mothers: Effects on Parenting Experience and Behavior. Infant Mental Health Journal. Vol. 17 (1), 58-73).
- A study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy notes that although teenage pregnancy rates have fallen, almost 1 million teenage girls get pregnant every year. (Common Sense on Teen Pregnancy. The Boston Globe. Sep. 31, 1998).
Germer, Fawn. (Dec. 13, 1998). Agencies target teen pregnancy. The Tampa Tribune.
Covers a Florida home visiting program targeted towards educating teens in birth control methods to avoid repeat pregnancies, as well as health and school/job education.
Higgins, Richard. (Nov. 16, 1997). Getting older, and getting the young: Many grandparents raising grandchildren again. The Boston Globe.
Looks at the consequences of grandparents raising their grandchildren.
Welford, Heather. (Sep. 9, 1998). Child care: Will the Government's national strategy on child care effectively tackle the problems faced by parents-one of the most important issues facing society? The Guardian Newspaper.
Examines a home visiting program that teaches parenting skills.
Compiled by:
Priya Luthra
Web Development Team
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