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Bidirectional Associations Between Family Belonging and Youth Well-Being Over Time: Family Structure as a Moderating
1School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Purpose:
Among plausible family-level correlates of youth well-being is the construct of family belonging; however, there remain opportunities to better understand whether and how family belonging and indicators of youth well-being are associated over time in a bidirectional, transactional process. The purposes of the present study were to assess (1) overtime, bidirectional associations between family belonging and youth well-being (i.e., internalizing and externalizing) and (2) family structure as a moderating influence.
Methods:
Structural equation modeling and representative data from Waves I and II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health were used to assess bidirectional associations between family belonging, youth internalizing, and youth externalizing (N = 12,841; 50% female identifying) distinctly among youth residing two-parent biological/adoptive families, stepfamilies, and single-parent families.
Results:
For youth in all three family structure groups, higher levels of family belonging at Wave I were associated with decreases in youth internalizing at Wave II (β = -0.07), and higher levels of internalizing at Wave I were associated with decreases in family belonging at Wave II (β = -0.05).
Discussion:
Elevated levels of youth internalizing could shape family processes in ways that are negatively associated with youths' perceptions of family belonging over time. Practical efforts to promote youth well-being could attend to both their perceptions of family belonging (and the family dynamics that undergird them) and their levels of internalizing, recognizing the potential for youth to get caught in a vicious cycle whereby declines in one of these variables yields declines in the other.
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