About

Prepared by A. Rae Simpson, PhD, Raising Teens: A Synthesis of Research and a Foundation for Action is the culmination of a groundbreaking initiative to pull together current research on the parenting of adolescents and to distill from it key messages for the media, policymakers, practitioners, and parents.

This initiative was launched in collaboration with the Harvard Center for Health Communication and was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Kathy Simons formerly of the MIT Work-Life Center served as research specialist for the project, working closely with Dr. Simpson in gathering, analyzing, and summarizing the research findings. More than 20 researchers and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines and ethnic groups provided essential assistance by contributing materials and reviewing the draft report.

The Raising Teens Project found significant areas of agreement among experts on the parenting of adolescents—in spite of the broad diversity of cultures represented in the United States and the myriad individual differences in parents and children. Its central findings—Ten Tasks of Adolescent Development and Five Basics of Parenting Adolescents—cut across a broad range of disciplinary and cultural perspectives. More than 10,000 copies of the report have been distributed around the world, and Dr. Simpson has presented its highlights to parents and professionals nationally and internationally.