Risk and Resilience: Adolescent Mothers and Their Children Grow Up

In 1984, a longitudinal study was launched at the University of Notre Dame to evaluate the social and psychological consequences of teenage parenting. Interwoven Lives: Adolescent Mothers and Their Children (2001) described, in detail, the development of these adolescent mothers and their children across the first eight years of life. Major delays were first noticed in children’s patterns of attachment at age 1 and their IQ and personal adjustment scores at age 3. By age 8, school-related problems were found in 70% of the children. With these data as the backdrop, this companion volume, Risk and Resilience, identifies major risk factors associated with long-term developmental delays as well as the processes that led to resilience in some of the mothers and children.

This new volume traces the children’s development at ages 8, 10, and 14. The editors focus on identifying risk and protective factors associated with important life course trajectories as the mothers entered early adulthood and their children became adolescents. Relatively unexplored protective factors - such as religiosity, patterns of father involvement, and romantic relationships - were found to positively influence development for both teenage mothers and their children. This new text also addresses:

• New methodological approaches with an emphasis on the use of hierarchical linear and structural equation modeling and dynamical systems analyses
• Implications for prevention and intervention programs
• Intellectual, educational, and socioemotional outcome data
• The ＂dark side＂ of rearing children in poverty
• The multiple risks related to adolescent parenting and their profound impact on children’s development
• How resilience emerges in children’s lives and the specific factors that promote it.

Risk and Resilience appeals to researchers in developmental psychology and family processes as well as agency and government professionals charged with public policy and service delivery.

John G. Borkowski, Jaelyn R. Farris, Thomas L. Whitman, Shannon S. Carothers, Keri Weed