ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN QUEER PARENT FAMILY SOCIALIZATION AND ADOLESCENT OUTCOMES AMONG DIVERSE LGBTQ+ PARENT FAMILIES IN THE U.S.

Queer parent family socialization refers to the way LGBTQ+ parents talk with their children about what it means to be queer in society, how to handle discrimination, and ways to have pride in their family’s identity. This construct has been linked with positive well-being outcomes in children, and this study used a strengths-based, mixed- methods framework informed by Minority Stress Theory and intersectionality to examine how queer parent family socialization related to several adolescent well-being outcomes, namely internalizing behaviors, social competence, and adaptive coping. Participants recruited across two projects were 191 queer parents with an adolescent and 114 adolescents with at least one queer parent, and they were asked to complete surveys assessing queer parent family socialization, internalizing behaviors, social competence, and adaptive coping. Through three family conversation tasks, families and their adolescents were asked to recount experiences with discrimination and how their family talks about diversity, which showed that queer parents deliberately use intersectional socialization strategies when communicating with and raising their children. I found that parents, on average, reported higher socialization scores than adolescents, and socialization was positively associated with social competence and adaptive coping. These findings indicate that queer parent family socialization could serve as a protective factor for diverse queer families, especially their adolescents, in the face of discrimination. Clinicians can use these findings to support queer families in practice, and researchers can use these findings to continue exploring the construct of queer parent family socialization as it relates to the well-being of all members of queer families. Future research should continue to examine this construct in diverse families.