This WWW site is developed and revised by Shane R. Jimerson, Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The authors of each of the topics are graduate students enrolled in the Adolescent Development seminar at UCSB.
Each year, we will continue to post additional papers addressing current issues in adolescent development.
If you have questions or comments please e-mail Dr. Jimerson at Jimerson@education.ucsb.edu
 

 
Mother-Daughter Relationships During Puberty
 
by Marisela  Bermudez & Laura R.  Burleigh
University of California, Santa Barbara

 Since the time that G.  Stanley Hall published his two volume set Adolescence in 1904, we have come a long way in our understanding of the biological, cognitive and social changes that occur within an individual during puberty.  Once viewed as highly deterministic, adolescence was regarded as a time of "storm and stress", and solely attributed to the momentous physical and physiological changes that take place.  However, critics of Hall began to question this elegant, if not over-simplified explanation of the conflicts that arise in families when a child enters puberty.  Due to their high incidence and length, mother- daughter relationships have been of primary concern.  The purpose of this paper is to review the various processes that occur during puberty, introduce the currently accepted model in the field and how it explains the mother-daughter conflict, and finally, to introduce some interesting, yet controversial, theories that emphasize the role of the environment as a catalyst to the pubertal maturation of girls.
Biological
 Physical maturation for girls generally begins around 9.5 years.  The first step is the release of hormones from the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and the ovaries.  This physiological event stimulates the growth spurt, which occurs six to twelve months before breast budding.  Breast development is the first secondary sex characteristic to appear around 10.5 years of age, which is followed by the presence of pubic hair.  Roughly two years later, at age 12.5, menarche should begin (Paikoff & Brooks-Gunn, 1991).  Although ages are provided here, the pubertal timing and its rate in girls is highly variable and many factors contribute to its process:  such as, heredity, health, nutrition and body mass.  The single best predictor for the onset of menarche is weight, which is approximately 106 pounds when menarche begins (Moffitt, Caspi, Belsky & Silva, 1992).
 According to Steinberg (1987), conflict between mothers and daughters is associated with the daughter's physical maturation.  More physically mature girls tended to rate their mothers as more controlling and restrictive than less physically developed girls.  This may be explained by the daughter's reproductive abilities, which may cause concern or fear in the mother.  Also,  emotional autonomy of daughters increased as a function of physical maturity.  These two findings outline a specific conflict which involve a parent's desire for control and a child's struggle for emotional distance.
Cognitive
 In Piaget's model of cognitive development, children transition from concrete operations to formal reasoning during early adolescence and the time of puberty.    Formal operational thought is defined as the period in which adolescents obtain the abilities for hypothetical thought, and assimilation and accomodation of new information and experiences.  This period is also characterized by highly idealistic views in which one begins to question the quality of self, others and his/her surroundings.
 Conflicts between mothers and daughters have been, in part, attributed to this cognitive transition.  More complex thought could cause the child to evaluate the quality of the mother-daughter relationship and its deficiencies (Paikoff & Brooks-Gunn, 1991).  During early adolescence, the assimilation of new ideas and information may be overwhelming, which results in exaggerated idealism.  Parents are often the subject of this idealistic thought, and most likely do not measure up to the child's expectations.  Also, the movement into formal reasoning may increase self-reliance, independence and autonomy.  This move towards greater independence is reflected in the severe decrease in time spent with parents (Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck & Duckett, 1996), and the reduction of parent decision-making for their adolescent children (Paikoff & Brooks-Gunn, 1991).  Finally, Steinberg argues that as one passes through puberty, an attributional bias may occur, which favors an adolescent's perspective in parent-child conflict situations.
 In addition to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, Erickson's thoughts on identity development may shed some light on the mother-daughter conflict during puberty.  According to Erickson, identity development demands that the individual pass through periods of commitment and crisis.  Commitment is characterized by conscious decision making, and in contrast, crisis is defined as personal exploration of and investment in a system of beliefs.  The degree to which an individual engages in one or both of these two elements can explain other aspects of one's personality, including anxiety, self-esteem, moral reasoning and patterns of behavior (www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/n/x/nxd10/parentin.htm#booke).  Thus, how one perceives one's self during puberty may affect one's interactions with others.
 Although one tends to think only of the adolescent when examining puberty, Freedman-Doan et al. (1992) chose to focus on the changing expectations of the parents as they prepared for their oldest child to enter puberty.  Their results indicate that mothers expected that the level of conflict would increase during pubertal maturation of their daughters.  Additionally, they reported that mothers expected to feel less effective as  parents and anticipated emotional distancing from their daughters.
Current Model
 In consideration of the previously described factors that contribute to mother-daughter conflicts during puberty, Paikoff & Brooks-Gunn (1991) have developed a multifaceted model to explain this phenomenon (see Figure 1).  As you can see from the diagram, this model includes the family context, physical, cognitive and social development, and the affective responses of parents and adolescents to the changes occurring within the individual, as well as the family.  The process begins with the family characteristics because the degree of conflict arising from a child's pubertal maturation is directly related to the degree of conflict already present within the home environment.  Then, the process moves to the various areas of development, physical (puberty), cognitive, and social, and their interactions between each other.  Next, it considers the affective responses of parents and child, which also connects to step one, family characteristics.  This connection between family and individual responses is best understood if one considers communication methods, degree of warmth and parenting styles used in the home.  Lastly, physical, cognitive and social development, and parent and child affect all lead to the family conflict outcome.  This thorough description suggests that some degree of conflict is inevitable.  Holmbeck and Hill (1991) support this assumption in their conclusion that conflict may facilitate the family's adaptation to the changes occurring in the adolescent and as a consequence, the family structure.
 
Sociobiological Model
 In addition to powerful genetic factors puberty timing is equally influenced by social and contextual factors.  Research has found that the timing of puberty largely depends on complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors.   Several studies have documented the importance of environmental factors in the timing of menarche in girls.  A variety of other factors including family conflict, stress and nutrition have been found to influence the age of menarche.  Lawrence Steinberg and his colleagues (1988) have found family conflict to be an important stress factors affecting timing of puberty.  Studies in the United States and New Zealand have found that adolescents who experience a high level of family conflict reach menarche earlier than those girls who live in more harmonious families (Moffit, 1992).
Furthermore, research on the developmental consequences of father absence have further found evidence that shows that preadolescent contextual stress is associated with accelerated pubertal maturation in girls.   Moffit (1992) reports that girls reared in father absent homes attain menarche at an earlier age than girls of intact homes.  Therefore, stress associated with divorce and with growing up in single parent households has been found to speed up pubertal maturation.
Several studies have consistently shown that conflict and distance between parents and adolescents increase at puberty. Recent developments indicate that the link between social experience and hormonal activity is reciprocal.  That is, pubertal maturation leads to an increase in parent-child conflict and parent child conflict accelerates pubertal timing. This effect has been found particularly in females and is more commonly observed in mother-daughter relations.  In a correlation study of puberty and parent-child distance, Lawrence Steinberg (1988) found that girls who reported having more strained relations with their mothers matured faster and attained menarche earlier than their counterparts. Thus, Steinberg concluded that girls’ maturation appears to be accelerated by parent-child distance particularly in mother daughter dyads. Further evidence of social influences on pubertal maturation comes from research on non-human primates.   Studies of monkey indicate that reproduction among female adolescent monkeys is inhibited by the presence of the mother.  The established effect is suppression of ovulation, slowing of sexual maturation and suppression of fertility.  Thus, these animal studies suggest that reproductive maturation specifically may be inhibited by physical closeness to parents and accelerated by distance from them.
Jay Belsky, Lawrence Steinberg, and Patricia Draper (1991) provide further suppor for the idea that timing of puberty is affect by prior or contemporaneous social conditions.  They state that early social context; child rearing practice and pre-pubertal behavior problems in combination predict pubertal timing.  Therefore, their sociobiological theory asserts that puberty will be earlier among children who grow in a context of stress, experience rejecting parenting relations and show signs of pre-pubertal behavior problems.  Thus, in addition to parent-child relations Belsky, Steinberg and Draper (1991) have found other environmental factors such as childhood experiences, and child rearing practices to be significantly related to timing of puberty.
Steinberg has offered a provocative evidence in his recent effort to understand the relations between family conflict and pubertal timing.  His research has shown an interactive influence between family conflict, contextual stress in predicting age of menarche.  Furthermore, Belsky’s et. al findings have replicated and have provided further empirical support for Steinberg’s and Moffit’s earlier reports of father absence and family conflict.
 Taken together, these studies show that reproductive maturation and pubertal timing are both contextually and socially mediated and accelerated by intrafamilial stress. Therefore, the literature demonstrates that pubertal maturation both provokes and follows from increased parent-child conflict.  In sum, this new research has demonstrated that pubertal timing can no longer be viewed as only a physiological and hormonal process but must be examined in association with social and psychobiological processes.
 
 
 
 
 

References
 Freedman-Doan, C., Arbreton, A., Harold, R. & Eccles, J.  (1992).  Looking forward to adolescence:  mothers' and fathers' expectations for change.  Educational Resources Information Center, 349096.
 Holmbeck, G.  N.  & Hill, J.  P.  (1991)  Conflictive engagement, positive affect and menarche in families with seventh-grade girls.  Child Development, 62, 1030-1048.
 Larson, R.  W., Richards, M.  H., Moneta, G., Holmbeck, G.  & Duckett, E.  (1996).  Changes in adolescents' daily interactions with their families from ages 10 to 18:  disengagement and transformation.  Develomental Psychology, 32,  744-754.
 Moffitt, T.  E., Caspi, A., Belsky, J.  & Silva, P.  A.  (1992).  Childhood experience and the onset of menarche:  a test of a sociobiological model.  Child Development, 63, 47-58.
 Paikoff, R.  L.  & Brooks-Gunn, J.  (1991).  Do parent-child relationships change during puberty?  Psychological Bulletin, 110, 47-66.
 Steinberg, L.  (1987).  Impact of puberty on family relations:  effects of pubertal status and pubertal timing.  Developmental Psychology, 23, 451-460.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

WWW sites
www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/n/x/nxd10/parentin.htm#booke
Parenting a teenager:  what works?
 This is an informative summary of identity development during adolescence.  It first considers the concerns of an adolescent, and how those ideas or worries play into their development of self.  A brief description of Erickson's categories and the concept, commitment versus crisis, are provided.  Finally, parenting behaviors are suggested to contribute to healthy adolescent development, and authoritative parenting and warmth are emphasized.
 This site was helpful because it accentuated the cognitive and identity changes that occur during adolescence.  These signs of development and maturity provide insight into the conflicts that transpire between mothers and daughters.

www.hslib.washington.edu/your_health/hbeat/hb960312.html
Back to basics:  mother-daughter communications key in preventing teen pregnancy
 This site reviews a research study conducted in Washington due to an overwhelming increase in teen pregnancies.  The study found that communication between mothers and daughters regarding sexual intercourse and pregnancy reduced the chances of the daughter becoming pregnant in her teens.  The nurse/researcher found that in 75% of the pregnant teens examined, communication between mothers and daughters broke down prior to the pregnancy.  A pilot study aimed to improve communication using role playing and analysis of mother-daughter interactions on video was successful in teaching better communication skills in higher-conflict situations.  This supports the ideas presented in our project because it demonstrates that conflict over issues related to puberty, namely sex, occur, and how those interactions can result in negative outcomes for the family.

www.home and family.com/features/parent/conflict.html
Resolving mother/daughter conflicts
 This information was found in a parenting search and lists the most common conflicts between mothers and daughters.
1.  Moms are too controlling and daughters want their independence.
2.  Mothers and daughters expects too much of each other.
3.  Sickness due to alcohol and/or drug abuse.
4.  Mothers criticizing their daughters.
Possible solutions to overcoming these conflicts are setting boundaries for behavior and communication, be more accepting and to make a sincere effort to avoid negative judgments.
 This information was less related to our topic because it was not developmental in nature.  However, it pointed out some key areas of conflict that were not mentioned in our other reading.  The research articles attributed the conflict to daily routines, such as cleaning the dishes, doing one's homework, etc. etc., but this parenting site offers more personal and relational reasons for conflict between mothers and daughters.

www.nfb.ca/FMT/E/MSN/35/35308.html
Unveiled:  the mother/daughter relationship
 In an emotionally charged documentary, the conflicts between mothers and daughters are intensely revealed.  Three mother/daughter dyads are examined in the context of organizing the daughters' weddings.  The film won the Toronto Film Award.
 Obviously, this site is less useful to our project, but was more for fun.  To respond to the request for more videos, it may be something to pursue for next year.
 
 

www.missouri.edu/~councwww/self_help/topic_1/article_261.html
Linked Lives
 This site provided a brief abstract for a book by L. R.  Fischer that examines how the mother-daughter relationship changes through the lifespan.  Its title is coined from the passing of the caregiving role from mother to daughter generation after generation.  It covers mother-daughter relationship changes in adolescence, marriage, motherhood and old age. It also includes topics on gender, fathers, husbands and generation gaps.
 We did not use the information from this site for our project, but would recommend it for further reading to those interested in the issue of mother-daughter conflict.