Kids of caring parents have better mental health

Having parents who understand how their day went may even affect teens' cellular responses to stress providing a possible link to improved physical health as well.

Lauren J. Human, PhD, said that these results provided preliminary evidence that parental accuracy regarding their teen's daily experiences might be one specific daily parent factor that plays a key role in adolescent health and welfare.

The research found that the parents' ratings were more accurate when the teens generally had more positive days at home, and when the parents and teens generally had more positive days together. Parents' accuracy in rating their teen's daily demands was not significantly associated with adolescent depression or stress levels.

Dr. Human further mentioned that teens whose parents more accurately perceived the positivity of their day together exhibited greater "glucocorticoid sensitivity."

The researchers concluded that overall, these findings provide novel evidence that how well parents understand their adolescents' day-to-day experiences might play a unique role in both adolescent psychological functioning and glucocorticoid sensitivity.

The study is published in the Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society