Parental Influences on Adolescent Involvement in Community Activities

Abstract

Youth involvement in extracurricular activities reflects both family socialization influences and civic development.Parents can promote such activity through examples set by personal involvement in the community and through reinforcement of their children's interests.Using data (N = 362) from the 9th and 10th grade waves of the Iowa Youth and Families Project (Conger & Elder, 1994), we find that both the behavioral model set by parents and their personal reinforcement of children's actions make significant differences in the extracurricular activity involvement of boys and girls.However, parental reinforcement is most consequential when parents are not engaged in community activities.In this situation, warm parents are likely to reinforce their children, and this reinforcement strengthens children's involvement in community activities.The family dynamics of civic socialization deserve more attention than they have received to date. Article:American youth spend a substantial number of hours in extracurricular activities, including school-based clubs, school and local sports teams, and community-based organizations such as service clubs and church youth groups (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1992).A small but rapidly growing body of literature suggests that participation in both school-and community-based extracurricular activities is associated with and predictive of behavioral well-being among adolescents.hi particular, youth extracurricular involvement is frequently linked with academic competence.Adolescents' involvement in volunteer service or participation in church-sponsored activities is associated with better academic performance during high school and an increased likelihood of college attendance (Eccles & Barber, 1999).Student participation in organized sports has been linked with higher academic grades, greater expressed liking of school during the high school years, and an increased likelihood of college attendance (Eccles & Barber, 1999).Involvement in school-based extracurricular activities during adolescence appears to serve as a protective factor against early school leaving ( Mahoney & Cairns, 1997;McNeal, 1995).Participation in leadership activities and clubs and special interest groups is associated with students' achieving higher academic grades, and having greater school engagement and higher educational aspirations (Lamborn, Brown, Mounts, & Steinberg, 1992).Less readily apparent benefits of civic participation include its potential to reinforce positive social values (Almond & Verba, 1963;Youniss, McLellan, & Yates, 1997) and set in motion a lifetime pattern of civic activity (Hanks & Eckland, 1978).Youth involvement in service activities meets community needs and applies principles and values that chart a lifetime course of adult development.Although the benefits of civic involvement to adolescents and communities are strong and far-reaching, such participation is not always without accompanying risks.Of particular concern are findings that adolescents who participate in organized sports activities, although benefitting academically from their involvement, may be at an increased risk for involvement in deviant behavior, and in particular higher levels of alcohol and drug use (Eccles & Barber, 1999).In sum, it appears civic involvement in general benefits adolescents academically and socially, but participation in organized sports activities may place certain youth at risk of increased drug and alcohol use.