Adolescents, Family, and Friends: Social Support after Parents’ Divorce or Remarriage

Whom do teenagers turn to when they need emotional support? In this contribution to the literature on adolescent social support networks, Kandi Stinson conducts thirty in-depth interviews with adolescents and their custodial parents. She divides her interviews evenly between children living with both biological parents, with the divorced mother, and with the divorced mother and stepfather. Do the structure and effectiveness of the adolescents’ social support networks vary in these three environments? What are the implications of these variations for adolescent well-being? Focusing on what kinds of networks most adequately meet the needs of adolescents, Stinson concludes that the relationship between adolescent and mother is crucial in determining the size and structure of support networks and that variations in the mother’s marital status have a great impact on the number, kinds, and quality of support networks.

Stinson’s study explores the answers to three guiding questions: What do adolescent support networks look like? How are these networks affected by the divorce or remarriage of parents? What are the impacts of network size and structure on adolescent well-being? Following a review of literature, Stinson describes the size and structural characteristics of networks. She then focuses four chapters on those particular network relationships which emerge as significant sources of support: mother-adolescent, father-adolescent, relationships with relatives, and adolescent friendships. In her final chapter Stinson applies her empirical results to her guiding questions. This study is directed at researchers and practitioners specializing in adolescent well-being, divorce, and remarriage counseling.