Kids Feel Less Connected
What does this mean? Connectedness refers to a child’s feelings of being loved and feeling connected to a network of support.
As children move toward the end of the first decade of life, they begin spending more unsupervised time with friends and peers then they had before. Time with peers increases, especially the amount of time spent with peers after school. Parental monitoring – or the knowledge of and involvement in their child’s friendships, activities, and time use – is considered to be one of the most important parenting practices during the late childhood and the early adolescent years. Research finds that adequate parental monitoring fosters autonomy while simultaneously protecting early adolescents.
As children progress from Grade 4 to Grade 7, parents generally know less about how/where they are spending their time. Our research also demonstrates that parents of boys are less likely to know how their children spend their time than parents of girls.
Children who experience higher levels of parental monitoring tend to have higher levels of reported well-being.
Children’s social and emotional health indicators are higher on every measure with higher levels of parental connectedness.
We would like to hear your views, please feel free to comment.
1 comment:
Did the research or the community work United Way's involved in tell us more about what makes kids feel more connected (feeling loved as it's defined)? Is it the amount of time parents make available for them? Is it the quality of communications? "Every child requires someone in his or her life who is absolutely crazy about them..." How does this translate into actions for parents?
Besides, as a parent of a young child, I wonder how the early years have an impact on how kids feel about their attachment to parents in later years.
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