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 Finding out why the spillover occurs, and which teens are most
vulnerable to it, could help target ways to interrupt this damaging
negative feedback loop, the study team writes in the journal Child
Development.
“We know that family conflict is a risk factor for poor school
performance, but less is known about how these processes are
associated on a daily basis,” lead author Adela Timmons told Reuters
Health in an email.
“We wanted to see if problems in one domain are associated with
problems in the other domain on the same day and even several days
later,” said Timmons, a doctoral student at the University of
Southern California in Los Angeles. “We also wanted to identify
teens most at risk for these spillover processes.”
Timmons and her co-author Gayle Margolin, a psychologist and
researcher also at USC, analyzed data on more than 100 California
teens and their parents who had been recruited for a long-term
study.
Every day for two weeks, the parents and teens filled out
questionnaires, reporting on any family conflict that had occurred
during the day. The teens also reported on their moods and any
school problems.
In addition, teens completed a one-time questionnaire about symptoms
associated with depression, anxiety and so-called externalizing
behaviors – meaning “acting out on” their problems.
The researchers found a cycle of spillover between family conflicts
and problems at school.
Conflict with either parent was associated with more school-related
problems and with teens being in a bad mood for up to two days
later.
But conflict between parents did not appear to be linked with
problems at school for the teens.
The researchers also found that teens who externalized their
symptoms were more likely to have bad days at school when they had a
conflict with their father. Kids who had more internalized symptoms,
such as depression or anxiety, were more likely to have bad moods on
days they had conflicts with either parent.
The connector between problems at home and at school seemed to be
the teenagers’ mood.
“We found that negative mood may be one factor that transmits
problems across domains,” Timmons said. “It is possible that helping
teens learn to recover from negative events in one domain may
prevent the transmission of problems to other domains.”
Margolin said parents should know that teens can be quite affected
by conflict that occurs at home.
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“Even if teens do not show they are upset, they may be feeling upset
for a day or two, and this might interrupt how they are doing at
school,” she told Reuters Health.
“Some teens may find it difficult to put aside the negative mood
that accompanies recent problems at home or at school,” she said.
“I think understanding how different spheres of adolescents' lives
impact each other and adolescents' well-being is an important topic
to study,” Lisa Flook told Reuters Health in an email.
“I think the authors are spot-on in identifying daily interactions
and negative mood as potential targets for intervening in the
spillover cycle,” said Flook, a scientist with the Center for
Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Flook, who wasn’t involved in the new study, said a similar cyclic
pattern exists for adults as well, especially related to work
stress.
For parents, she said, becoming aware of the pattern in their own
lives and monitoring and managing their own levels of stress might
be a first step toward helping their teens.
“Further, parents could be aware of this pattern of spillover in
their children, so that they might be able to provide support and
perhaps be less triggered by their adolescents' negative mood and
help their child develop more insight into the pattern as well,”
Flook said.
Flook said schools should recognize the value of social-emotional
learning in order to support students, because events outside of the
school context do impact students' learning.
“Helping students learn healthy ways to manage and cope with stress
and difficult emotions is a valuable lifelong skill to develop,” she
said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/13kcecE Child Development, online October 23,
2014.
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