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According to environmental sensitivity models, children vary in responsivity to parenting. However, different models propose different patterns, with responsivity to primarily: (1) adverse parenting (adverse sensitive); or (2) supportive parenting (vantage sensitive); or (3) to both (differentially susceptible). This preregistered study tested whether these three responsivity patterns coexist. We used intensive longitudinal data of Dutch adolescents (N = 256, M age = 14.8, 72% female) who bi-weekly reported on adverse and supportive parenting and their psychological functioning (t mean = 17.7, t max = 26). Dynamic Structural Equation Models (DSEM) indeed revealed differential parenting effects. As hypothesized, we found that all three responsivity patterns coexisted in our sample: 5% were adverse sensitive, 3% vantage sensitive, and 26% differentially susceptible. No adolescent appeared unsusceptible, however. Instead, we labeled 28% as unperceptive, because they did not perceive any changes in parenting and scored lower on trait environmental sensitivity than others. Furthermore, unexpected patterns emerged, with 37% responding contrary to parenting theories (e.g., decreased psychological functioning after more parental support). Sensitivity analyses with concurrent effects and parent-reported parenting were performed. Overall, findings indicate that theorized responsivity-to-parenting patterns might coexist in the population, and that there are other, previously undetected patterns that go beyond environmental sensitivity models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous theories suggest that parents and adolescents influence each other in diverse ways; however, whether these influences differ between subgroups or are unique to each family remains uncertain. Therefore, this study explored whether data-driven subgroups of families emerged that exhibited a similar daily interplay between parenting and adolescent affective well-being. To do so, Subgrouping Group Iterative Multiple Model Estimation (S-GIMME) was used to estimate family-specific dynamic network models, containing same- and next-day associations among five parenting practices (i.e., warmth, autonomy support, psychological control, strictness, monitoring) and adolescent positive and negative affect. These family-specific networks were estimated for 129 adolescents (Mage = 13.3, SDage = 1.2, 64% female, 87% Dutch), who reported each day on parenting and their affect for 100 consecutive days. The findings of S-GIMME did not identify data-driven subgroups sharing similar parenting-affect associations. Instead, each family displayed a unique pattern of temporal associations between the different practices and adolescent affect. Thus, the ways in which parenting practices were related to adolescents' affect in everyday life were family specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous theories and empirical studies have suggested that parents and their adolescent children reciprocally influence each other. As most studies have focused on group-level patterns, however, it remained unclear whether this was true for every family. To investigate potential heterogeneity in directionality, we applied a novel idiographic approach to examine the effects between parenting and adolescent well-being in each family separately. For 100 days, 159 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 13.31, 62% female) reported on affective well-being and four parenting dimensions. The family-specific effects of pre-registered (https://osf.io/7n2jx/) dynamic structural equation models indeed revealed that a reciprocal day-to-day association between parenting and adolescent affective well-being was present only in some families, with the proportion of families displaying a reciprocal association varying across the four parenting dimensions (11–55%). In other families, either parenting predicted the adolescent's affective well-being (8–43%) or vice versa (10–27%), or no day-to-day associations were found (16–60%). Adolescents with higher trait levels of environmental sensitivity and neuroticism were more strongly affected by parenting. Thus, findings suggest that the ways in which parents and adolescents influence each other in everyday life are unique, stressing the need to move towards an idiographic parenting science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though each adolescent is unique, some ingredients for development may still be universal. According to Self-Determination Theory, every adolescent's well-being should benefit when parents provide warmth and autonomy. To rigorously test this idea that each family has similar mechanisms, we followed 159 Dutch parent-adolescent dyads (parent: Mage = 45.34, 79% mothers; adolescent: Mage = 13.31, 62% female) for more than three months, and collected 100 consecutive daily reports of parental warmth, autonomy support, positive and negative affect. Positive effects of parental warmth and autonomy support upon well-being were found in 91–98% of the families. Preregistered analysis of 14,546 daily reports confirmed that effects of parenting differed in strength (i.e., some adolescents benefited more than others), but were universal in their direction (i.e., in fewer than 1% of families effects were in an unexpected direction). Albeit stronger with child-reported parenting, similar patterns were found with parent-reports. Adolescents who benefited most from need-supportive parenting in daily life were characterized by higher overall sensitivity to environmental influences. Whereas recent work suggests that each child and each family have unique developmental mechanisms, this study suggests that need-supportive parenting promotes adolescent well-being in most families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]