Promotion of family life quality amongst adolescents : the Project P.A.T.H.S. in Hong Kong

Abstract

Adolescence is a period during which adolescents and their parents have to re-define the ways of interaction and resolution of parent-adolescent conflicts. As such, how to help adolescents learn the ways to interact with the parents in a healthy manner is an important question to be considered. Adopting a positive youth development perspective, it is argued that promotion of psychosocial competencies of adolescents can help adolescents to develop better emotional and social competencies, which would eventually promote family cohesion and harmony. In this paper, several units in the Project P.A.T.H.S. with reference to bonding and resilience are outlined to illustrate how positive youth development programs may help to promote family quality of life amongst families with adolescent children.