Mothers' awareness of their early adolescents' stressors: Relation between awareness and adolescent adjustment

The goal of this study was to examine relations among mothers' awareness of their early adolescents' stressors, mother/adolescent communication, and adolescent problem behaviors. Ninth-graders and their mothers completed a stress inventory for high school students, a parent/adolescent communication scale, and a checklist for adolescents' anxious/depressed and aggressive behaviors. The results showed that adolescents reported experiencing more stress for eight content areas than mothers reported for their adolescents. Mother/adolescent communication was related inversely and significantly to adolescent problem behaviors, whether reported by mothers or by adolescents. Mothers' awareness of adolescent stress was related significantly and positively to adolescent reports of mother/adolescent communication and significantly and negatively to adolescents' reports of their anxious/depressed and aggressive behaviors. The findings indicated that mothers were only minimally aware of their adolescents' stressors and that adolescents whose mothers were more aware of their adolescents' stressors and who communicated more with their adolescents reported better adjustment.