What Works for Parent Involvement Programs for Adolescents: Lessons from Experimental Evaluations of Social Interventions. Fact Sheet. Publication #2009-48.

Adopting healthy and positive behaviors and avoiding risky ones are key developmental tasks of adolescence. Parents can play an important role in helping their adolescent children acquire or strengthen the behaviors, skills, attitudes, and motivation that promote physical and mental health and overall wellbeing. Recognizing this, a variety of programs and interventions seek to engage parents in efforts to achieve one or more outcomes for their adolescents: academic achievement; a reduction in internalizing behaviors such as depression and anxiety, or in disruptive or delinquent behaviors; a reduction or avoidance of substance use; avoidance of sexual risk-taking; and achieving/maintaining health and fitness.