PTA talk draws substantial crowd, reflecting community’s concern
Our “Privileged but Pressured” Children
April 4, 2008
by Anne Caywood and Lisa Levinson
Monday’s PTA presentation by Dr. Suniya Luthar of Teachers College, Columbia University on “Privileged but Pressured: The Risks of Raising Children in Affluent Communities” drew an audience of over 300, a fair indication of the level of concern in New Castle about this topic. As data dense PowerPoint slides would indicate, life for affluent suburban teens might be more complicated than most perceive.
Some facts about affluent communities to start:
—By 7th grade, 14% of girls in affluent suburban communities indicate that they are depressed, two times the national norm.
—One in ten 7th grade boys report drinking to the point of intoxication and experimenting with marijuana.
—Suburban teens’ substance use is strongly linked with anxiety and depression, indicating that many are self-medicating.
—There is a negative affect associated with substance use among teens that continues over time, reinforcing risk taking when hanging out.
—Adolescent boys seem to be recognized as cool or popular by the wider peer group for their involvement with alcohol and drugs.
—Both suburban boys and girls partake in substance use and rule-breaking behaviors but girls tend more than their male peers to direct this behavior inward with stronger links to anxiety and depression.
—Self-injury behaviors (self-hitting, cutting, body picking) are a prominent and recurrent phenomenon among children of highly educated, white-collar professionals.
These are just some of the findings that Dr. Suniya Luthar, Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, described during a thought provoking presentation hosted by the Chappaqua PTA and New Castle C.A.R.E.S. (Coalition for Awareness, Responsibility, Education and Safety) on raising children in affluent communities.
Dr. Luthar’s 10 years of research on affluent teens
A little more than a decade ago, while researching tenth grade inner city teens and the risk factors they confront, Dr. Luthar came across an unexpected finding: teens in her control group, represented by teens from an affluent community, exhibited consistently higher rates of substance use, anxiety and depression than their counterparts in the economically deprived community.
What followed was a decade of various studies to determine if this finding was unique to particular school configurations, to affluent communities in the Northeast, to affluent private schools or caused by some other variable. In every study the percentage of teens from families of higher economic status exceeded the national norms on almost all measures and at levels considered to be of clinical significance.
What emerged from the process was the beginnings of a complicated picture of what challenges children from affluent communities face. While the risk of substance abuse, anxiety, depression, rule-breaking and self-injury exist for all children, the data Dr. Luthar presented clearly indicates teens from affluent communities are experiencing these problems in greater numbers.
Why greater numbers of privileged teens experience these risks
Why are these kids at risk when in so many respects they live very privileged lives? Dr. Luthar’s research offers the following indications:
— Parents from affluent communities are less likely to provide meaningful consequences, particularly for boys that communicate the seriousness of rule-breaking.
— Kids from affluent communities are more likely to be provided with a breadth of enrichment activities that are geared to self-improvement as opposed to contributing to the family or community, a protective factor according to Luthar’s research. Those activities can also negatively affect family functioning by creating an unhealthy level of stress in the parent responsible for the coordination of multiple activities for multiple children, including providing required transportation.
— Parents in this group are often highly stressed and over extended, without sufficient support to do the hard work of parenting.
— Peer groups in affluent communities breed a social comparison culture that hampers the ability for friends to develop a healthy level of intimacy. The belief, and perhaps reality, that there are limited opportunities for coveted experiences such as participation on sports teams or admission to prestigious colleges or access to high profile internships transform friends into competitors.
— Kids in affluent communities feel parental expectations, specifically to be responsible and live up to your best, are emphasized less and that parental criticism is high.
The roots of these risks differ dramatically depending on the socio-economic status
The roots of adjustment problems in children from affluent communities are linked to things like perfectionism and parents’ emphasis on achievement, that is, personal success vs. personal integrity. In disadvantaged communities these same risks are more likely to be the result of more basic needs not being met such as hunger, unsafe living conditions, household instability, poverty, etc.
Leaving teens consistently unsupervised is problematic in all communities. A sense of closeness to mom and/or dad was a protective factor regardless of household income levels. There are risk factors common to all kids, however, in terms of family functioning, the most potent one, according to Dr. Luthar’s research, is parental criticism ,when kids feel belittled or put down by their parents. This was observed far more frequently in children from affluent communities.
What is clear is that material wealth does not imply superior family functioning. Quite the contrary, adolescents from affluent communities report a level of stress in their lives can be directly attributed to parenting. But there are many other factors within the school and community setting, not to mention the culture, that are also at work.
Results of a recent longitudinal study of affluent youth vs. national norms
Dr. Luthar spoke about The New England Study of Suburban Youth, a longitudinal investigation that is following a cohort group from predominately white upper middle class, well-educated families beginning when they were in 6th grade - currently they are college sophomores - and has compared them to national norms. When evaluating the family dimension, adolescents from this affluent community did not do as well on measures of closeness to mom and/or dad, frequent family meals and perceived parental emphasis on integrity vs. personal success. They did seem to do better on measures of supervised after school activities.
Two measures, expectations to be responsible and live up to your best and perceived criticism, were very problematic for this population and represent a potential for internalized feelings of decreased value. Containment or how a parent reacts to rule-breaking presented as a more significant variable among youth in affluent communities. The more tolerant parents are of problem behavior, the more likely the behavior is to continue and escalate. While this study confirms previous results regarding risk factors in children of well-educated and well-off parents, it also corroborates recent findings in a local survey.
Westchester parents have more permissive attitudes about substance abuse
Westchester County recently released results from a PRIDE parent attitudinal survey conducted in the spring of 2007. Four hundred and fourteen responses from parents of children between the ages of 12 and 17 were compared with a national sample of 10,450 who completed the same survey.
This project was done with the support of County Executive Andrew Spano, District Attorney Janet DiFiore and the Westchester Coalition for Drug and Alcohol Free Youth, a county-wide community coalition under the auspices of the County’s Office of Drug Prevention and STOP-DWI. A great deal of insight was gained from this effort. The survey indicated that Westchester parents have more permissive attitudes about substance use than their national counterparts, especially when disciplining teens for breaking rules.
Luthar’s recommendations for decreasing the risks to your children
So what to do about this social emotional time bomb? The first step is to debunk the myth that living in an affluent community protects kids from the pressures of life. Dr. Luthar has suggested the following considerations for strengthening protective factors:
— Reflect on your parental expectations. Encourage your child to be his or her best, but don’t expect a child to do more than he or she is capable of doing at a particular point in their cognitive, social and emotional development.
— Establish fair, clear and consistently applied consequences for rule-breaking. Make sure your child understands no means no.
— Get to know your teen. You don’t need to smother them to achieve this, but they must feel you are available, interested, involved. Teens need to be seen and heard for who they are.
— Help your child realize his or her value to the family and community. It is important for a child to feel useful.
— Manage your family’s stress and be aware of the values you communicate about yourself, your children and the community.
What the New Castle community is doing to address these risk factors
Our community has two organizations currently focusing on these complex issues. New Castle C.A.R.E.S. is a community-based coalition dedicated to acting as a catalyst and clearinghouse for programs and activities that enhance the emotional and social well being of our children and families. R21K, or Raising 21st Century Kids, is the Chappaqua PTA’s school-based coalition. R21K seeks to build a meaningful partnership between school, town and other community organizations to better foster positive youth development. R21K has four identified goals:
— Provide opportunities for parents to increase their knowledge of effective parenting skills to support their children’s development from pre-school through adolescence.
— Build protective factors within our community that minimize high risk and problem behaviors in our youth
— Support student programs that build social and emotional skills, connect kids to something bigger than themselves and provide alternatives to social activities that can lead to risky behaviors.
— Create a comprehensive plan that fosters positive youth development.
What you can do to foster positive youth development
R21K successfully launched a number of initiatives with the cooperation of New Castle CARES in the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school years. Looking ahead to 2008-2009, plans are in the works for further parent education as well as student-centered initiatives that involve the Chappaqua Library, the New Castle Police Department, the New Castle Recreation Department, NCCTV and the Chappaqua schools.
R21K needs your help to be successful. There are plenty of opportunities to be involved, whether you’re the parent of a Pre-K youngster or a high school student, a grandparent or an empty nester who’d like to stay connected to our community’s kids. For more information on New Castle C.A.R.E.S. or R21K and how you can help, visit http://www.chappaquapta.net and click on the R21K link in the left hand column. You can become a member of the R21K Steering Committee and/or volunteer to work on specific initiatives. But most pressing of all, become educated about the issues. With each other’s support, this community can raise children who are socially and emotionally healthy and prepared to be productive, caring members of our town and our world.
Anne Caywood and Lisa Levinson are the co-chairs of Chappaqua PTA R21K, Raising 21st Century Kids.
Correction:
“There are risk factors common to all kids, however, in terms of family functioning, the most potent one, according to Dr. Luthar’s research, is parental criticism when kids feel belittled or put down by their parents. This was observed far more frequently in children from affluent communities.”
Dr. Luthar’s research did not indicate that criticism was higher among kids from affluent communities. It is however, a risk factor.
