Social gaming--online gameplay involving digital interactions with others--is a common form of social media use among adolescents. Research on this topic has neglected the social aspect of gaming and the potential role of social gaming in adolescent development. In this article, we define social gaming, drawing on interdisciplinary theories to…

Adolescents are developmentally distinct from adults in ways that merit a tailored response to juvenile crime. Normative adolescent brain development is associated with increases in risk taking, which may include criminal behavior. Juvenile delinquency peaks during the adolescent years and declines in concert with psychosocial maturation. However,…

Developmental processes are embedded in social contexts, such as with family members. Adolescent development involves significant reorganization of the parent-adolescent relationship, which is fundamental to the continued psychosocial development of both the adolescent and the parent. In this article, we introduce the model of parent-adolescent…

A core attribute of the positive youth development movement has been to nullify negative perceptions of youth's capacities. Toward this end, measurement and classification systems benefit from efforts to view youth's capacities as assets contextualized by developmental potentials and opportunities. In this article, we consider this point with…

It has long been assumed that children and adolescents want to be with their peers and therefore make active efforts to engage with them. However, a sizable minority of youth avoid peers for internal reasons (e.g., anxiety, preferences for solitude) or because they are socially withdrawn. Although by definition, withdrawn youth tend to stay away…