Background: Internationally, the number of young people who experience significant mental health issues is increasing. It is argued that flexible, community-based initiatives can help support mental health services to address the mental health needs of young people. Youth mentoring is a community-based model, which has been found to act as a…

Background: During pandemics, implementing Public Health and Social Measures (PHSM) by governments and compliance with PHSM by individuals is paramount. However, adolescents have been less compliant in performing COVID-19 preventive behaviors, and PHSM have been associated with deterioration of adolescent mental health. Objective: The study aims…

Although diversity, equity, and inclusion have been a significant focus of research in children's literature, many studies fail to consider the reader's perspective and instead rely on text analyses. In the present study, the author employed focus groups to examine fifth-grade readers' insights as they interpreted, related to, and engaged with the…

Youth leadership development is crucial for empowering young people to thrive and contribute to society. Research on 4-H has demonstrated significant leadership growth among program participants, with effects persisting into emerging adulthood. However, little is known about what specific experiences shape 4-H youth's motivation to lead. This…

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted adolescents' lives, leading to increased stress and anxiety rates globally. Although existing research highlights the necessity of understanding the increased rates of anxiety in adolescents during and after the pandemic, it offers little insight into the risk and protective factors for…

Background/Context: Children and adolescents worldwide are often exposed to community violence, including homicides, assaults, and gang-related activities. Such exposure can disrupt developmental processes, heightening stress responses that impair self-regulation, emotional stability, and cognitive function. Previous meta-analyses have documented…

Background: Emotional problems among adolescents have increased substantially in recent years, and there is evidence that schoolwork pressures have also increased globally. We examine trends in perceived schoolwork pressure and emotional problems in Wales between 2002 and 2021, and associations between the two over this period. Methods: Repeat…

For nonbinary young people, school is often a hostile environment. However, as educators, we can support and affirm diverse gender identities in the classroom, validating students who identify outside the binary and fostering their classmates' empathy and understanding. A key component of culturally relevant pedagogy is literary representation. By…

Digital games are powerful for health education and can improve health determinants and behaviors, yet limited research focuses on their effectiveness in enhancing adolescent sexual and reproductive health. This review aimed to synthesize the current studies on the effectiveness of digital games for sexual and reproductive health among adolescents…

Although affective irritability is a common and concerning problem for autistic youth, limited research has examined relations among core autism characteristics and irritability. Therefore, this study investigated potential associations among types of restricted/repetitive behaviors (RRBs) and social communication challenges and irritability in…

Participation in physical activity (PA) tends to decline between childhood and adolescence, and in Australia the bulk of this decline has been shown to occur in the domain of non-organised PA (e.g. active play, informal sports). A better understanding of the reasons for the decline in non-organised PA may support strategies to counter barriers and…

Previous research has shown that cognitive development is sensitive to socio-economic status (SES) and multilinguistic experiences. However, these effects are difficult to disentangle and SES may modulate the effects of multilingualism. The present study used data from a large cohort of pupils who took part in the Study of Cognition, Adolescents…

In everyday life, individuals often need to make choices about the difficulty level of tasks they wish to perform. Here, we investigate age- and gender-related differences in the monitoring of discrepancies between the difficulty of a given task and one's own performance level, and in the likelihood to select task difficulties that match one's…

In the digitally empowered society, increased internet utilization leads to potential harm to the youth through cyberbullying on various social networking platforms. The cyberbullying stats keep on rising each year, leading to detrimental consequences. In response to this online threat, the Indian Government launched different helplines,…

Adolescent health and well-being are abysmal due to low and declining physical activity rates, increasing mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, and minimal opportunities to engage in meaningful social experiences. Adolescents who live in communities that are underserved face greater risks for experiencing health disparities…