Connection to parents and healthy separation during adolescence: A longitudinal perspective

• We provide evidence for measuring connection and separateness in the parent–adolescent relationship.
• A mutual sense of connection in the parent–adolescent relationship supports the adolescent's healthy separation.
• The early stages of puberty seem to impact parent–adolescent connection negatively.
• Parent–adolescent connection is similarly related to healthy separation in two-parent and single-parent families.
• Family income and ethnicity seem to impact adolescent males' and females' sense of healthy separation differentially.

The purpose of our study was to investigate how connection between parents and children influences the child's healthy separation during adolescence. We analyzed 3 waves of panel data from a study (Flourishing Families Project) of 500 families with children who were 10–13 years old at Time 1. This study includes information from the perspective of the child and his/her mother over a 4 year period for two-parent families and mother-headed households. Findings supported our hypothesis that a mutual sense of connection between mothers and adolescents supported the adolescent's healthy separation over time, with differences due to sex of the child, ethnicity and income. Pubertal maturation was negatively associated with the sense of connection between adolescents and mothers in our sample of young adolescents. We discuss these findings in relation to previous literature.