Executive Summary of Findings from the Coomunity Youth Survey

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF FINDINGS FROM THE COMMUNITY YOUTH SURVEY

MERCERISLAND

Prepared by

Suniya S. Luthar, Ph.D.

Aparna Sampat

Teachers College, ColumbiaUniversity

12/08/2006

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF FINDINGS FROM THE COMMUNITY YOUTH SURVEY

Introduction:

Preliminary studies withchildren of well-educated, white collar professionals have dispelled several stereotypes regarding well-being and adjustment among these “privileged” youth. Rigorous empirical studies conducted with this largely ignored population have revealed that they suffer from a variety of unique risks and are just as susceptible (if not more so) to several adjustment disturbances as their low-income counterparts (Luthar & Latendresse, 2005). Research comparing youth from high and low income communities, suggested that affluent adolescents from a New England 10th grade population reported significantly higher rates of drug use, depression, and anxiety than their lower income counterparts (Luthar & D’Avanzo, 1999). The suburban, relatively affluent group also indicated significantly higher levels of substance use when compared with national averages for American children. Furthermore, the findings between substance use and maladjustment suggest that the suburban, affluent youth may use substances as a means of self medicating.

These preliminary findings then logically begged the question, why?When potential causes for distress among 6th and 7th grade suburban youth were explored in a different affluent suburban community in the North East, findings revealed that low closeness to mothers was associated with distress, delinquency, and substance use (Luthar & Becker, 2002; Luthar & Lantendresse, 2005a; Luthar, Shoum, Brown, 2006). Furthermore, parents’ lack of physical presence (e.g. not eating dinner with their children, absence of adult after-school supervision)was associated with relatively high distress, rule-breaking, and substance use (Luthar & Becker, 2002, Luthar & Lantendresse, 2005b). Additional findings revealed that perceived criticism from parents was detrimental for these youth across several domains. Thus, each of these studies implicates both physical and emotional isolation from parents as possibly being implicated in the “pathways to maladjustment” for these youth.

Based on these findings, TheCommunity Youth Survey was implemented in order to explore the adjustment and maladjustment factors in the lives of adolescents attending IslanderMiddle Schooland Mercer IslandHigh School.

Major Findings:

Substance use:

Results of the survey, which replicatesubstance use findings from previous studies of affluent youth, indicate that youth’s alcohol, drug, and marijuana usewas dramatically higher among high school students than their middle school counterparts.

Whereas approximately 10% of middle school students reported using alcohol in the previous year, 50% to 60% endorsed alcohol use in the high school sample (see Figure 1). Similarly less than 5% of students in 6th – 8th grade reported cigarette use while 30-35% of 9th-12th graders reported that they had smoked at cigarettes in the last year (see Figure 2). Furthermore, high school students reported 4 times the rate of marijuana use in comparison to middle school students (see Figure 3). In this group of high school students, a higher percentage of girls reported alcohol use while a greater percentage of boys reported cigarette and marijuana use.

Further survey results indicate that, when compared to middle school students, both female and male high school students reported far more parental lenience about their substance use, anticipating relatively few consequences from parents on finding out about their use of drugs and alcohol(see Figure 4). Moreover, low perceived parental consequences for drug use were significantly related to high levels of actual use among adolescents. Conversely, those students who perceived stringent consequences for engaging in substance use, reported lower levels of use.

Internalizing and Externalizing Problems:

Children in general present with problems of one type or another on occasion, but sometimes, display a large number of related symptoms so that there is cause for clinical concern. For example, a child may report trouble with sleeping or eating which may not be of concern. However, ifdisturbances in sleep or appetite co-occur with several other problems – e.g., with concentration, feelings of sadness or anxiety, and low self-worth – this can signal clinically significant feelings of depression or anxiety.

In this survey, we used a standard questionnaire to assess the proportions of Mercer Islandstudents reporting clinically significant levels of symptoms across various adjustment dimensions, and compared them with national normative data on “average” American children. We looked at both internalizing or ‘inner-directed’ problems such as depression and anxiety, and externalizing or ‘outer-directed’ problems such as acting out, rule-breaking behaviors.

When compared to the average American child of the same age (based on a nationally standardized sample), middle school Mercer Island boys reported significantly higher levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms – more so than did their female counterparts. In normative samples, 7% of children, on average, report having clinically significant scores (above a T score of 65) on the various subscales or dimensions shown in Figure 5. Among Mercer Island middle school boys, the proportions of clinically significant symptoms were twice as high for anxiety (18%) and for thought problems (14%)..

Among the Mercer Island high school students, rates of clinically significant symptoms were elevated among girls as well as boys. As shown in Figure 6, the rates of significant rule breaking behaviors, and of anxious/depressed symptoms, were three times higher, and twice as high, respectively, as compared to national normative rates. Additional elevations were reported in all scales with the exception of aggressive behaviors for boys, which were comparable to the norm.

What types of factors are related to symptoms of distress?

We looked at different aspects of children’s lives, by their own reports, to see what might discriminate between those who reported relatively high versus low levels of distress.

Achievement Pressures:

Many students feel intense pressure to meet high standards for academic performance, and this felt academic pressure can manifest itself in excessive doubt and concern over mistakes. In order to measure signs of perfectionism due to achievement pressures among Mercer Island youth, we assessed both doubts about actionsand concern with mistakes. Example items of doubts about actions are, “Even when I do something very carefully, I often feel that it is not quite right,” and “I usually have doubts about the simple everyday things that I do.” Example items assessing students’ concerns with mistakes are, “If I fail at school, I am a failure as a person,” and “People will probably think less of me if I make a mistake.”

Findings indicate that students doubts about actions increase from middle to high school, and although nearly equal in middle school, by high school girls appear to have greater doubts about their actions than boys (see Figure 7). Similar findings were seen for students’ concern with mistakes. Furthermore, among middle and high school students, both excessive doubt and excessive concern over mistakes were significantly correlated with measures of depression and anxiety.

Family:

We also examined children’s perspectives of several aspects of family functioning, and found that their views of family relationships werelinked to different dimensions of distress. Across grade level and gender, we found strong associations involving low anticipated parents’ consequences for delinquency, rudeness to others, and academic disengagement or indolence, and also for low levels of felt closeness and communication with mothers and fathers, and high perceived parental criticism.

For middle school students, strong relationships werefound, in particular, between perceived parental consequences for misbehaviors and students’ levels of rule breaking and substance use. The associations between low parental attachment and adjustment problems seemed to be stronger for boys than for girls. Among high school students, anticipated parental consequences for different misbehaviors wereparticularly strongly correlated with rule breaking and substance use among girls. Further, parental closeness, expectations, and criticism were highly correlated with several internalizing and externalizing outcomes.

Next steps?

There are two major questions we are currently pursuing to understand further the trends in the data collected:

How do Mercer Island students fare, in terms of social-emotional adjustment, as compared to upper-middle class children from other parts of the country (public and private school)?

Although preliminary analyses (reported above) suggest that several factors are related to distress among Mercer Island youth, when these factors are all considered together in statistical analyses, which ones predominate – or “win” -- in reflecting the greatest unique significance for children’s adjustment?

References:

Luthar, S. S., & Becker, B. E. (2002). Privileged but pressured: A study of affluent youth. Child Development, 73, 1593-1610.

Luthar, S. S., & D’Avanzo, K. (1999). Contextual factors in substance use: A study of suburban and inner-city adolescents. Development and Psychopathology, 11, 845-867.

Luthar, S. S., & Latendresse, S. J. (2005 a). Children of the affluent: Challenges to well-being. Current Directions inPsychological Science, 14, 49-53.

Luthar, S. S., & Latendresse, S. J. (2005b). Comparable "risks" at the SES extremes: Pre-adolescents' perceptions of parenting. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 207-230.

Luthar, S.,Shoum, K. Brown, P. (2006). Extracurricular involvement among affluent youth: A scapegoat for "ubiquitous achievement pressures"? Developmental Psychology, 42(3), 583-597.