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The manner by which a mother interacts with her friends serves as a role model for how an adolescent child develops his/her own peer friendships. Unfortunately, teens often pick up on the negative elements in a relationship, such as conflict and antagonism, and then copy these attitudes into their own relationships. The new study investigated a previously understudied association —how a parent’s friendships influence the emotional well-being of their adolescent children. For the study, doctoral student Gary Glick and Amanda Rose, Ph.D., studied the development of friendships and other peer relationships during adolescence and their impact on psychological adjustment. They found that adolescents may mimic the negative characteristics of their mothers’ relationships in their own peer-to-peer friendships suggesting that mothers can serve as role models for their adolescents during formative years. | 
