Unfortunately, this sometimes is caused because parents are emotionally unavailable to their teenaged children. By the high school years, most teenagers report feeling closer to friends than parents. Parent-adolescent conflict increases between childhood and early adolescence, although in most families, its frequency and intensity remain low. Typically, conflicts are the result of relationship negotiation and continuing attempts by parents to socialize their adolescents, and do not signal the breakdown of parent-adolescent relations. In 10 to 20 percent of families, parents and adolescents are in distressed relationships characterized by emotional coldness and frequent outbursts of anger and conflict.
Unresolved conflicts produce discouragement and withdrawal from family life.
Adolescents in these families are at high risk for various psychological and behavioral problems. Youth gangs, commonly associated with inner-city neighborhoods, are becoming a recognizable peer group among youth in smaller cities, suburbs, and even rural areas. Gangs are particularly visible in communities with a significant portion of economically disadvantaged families and when the parent is conflictual, distant or unavailable. Formal dating patterns of two generations ago have been replaced with informal socializing patterns in mixed-sex groups. This may encourage casual sexual relationships that heighten the risk of exposure to AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.