Human Services News

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

New research by researchers at The University of Arizona and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, indicates that girls who grow up with supportive parents who themselves have a strong relationship are more likely to delay the onset of puberty.

These stressors include poverty, marital conflict, negativity and coercion in parent-child relationships, and lack of support between parents and children.

They measured socioeconomic conditions, marital conflict, parental depression and supportive versus coercive parenting through interviews with mothers and fathers.

The study followed the children through middle school, testing the first hormonal changes of puberty, the awakening of the adrenal glands, in 120 of the children (73 of whom were girls) when they were in first grade, and the development of secondary sexual characteristics, such as breast budding and the growth of body hair, in 180 girls in fifth grade.

The results of the study show that children living in families with greater parental supportiveness, from both mothers and fathers, less marital conflict and less depression reported by the fathers experienced the first hormonal changes of puberty later than other children.

In addition, children whose mothers had started puberty later (a genetic factor), whose families were better off when the children were in preschool, whose mothers gave them more support when they were in preschool and who had lower Body Mass Index when they were in third grade developed secondary sexual characteristics later than their peers.

"Consistent with the theory, quality of parental investment emerged as a central feature of the proximal family environment in relation to the timing of puberty," Ellis said.

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