With a little help from my child: A dyad approach to immigrant mothers' and adolescents' socio-cultural adaptation.

Intergenerational adjustment theories suggest that immigrant adolescents may be particularly influential in their families, as they take on family obligations and serve as language brokers. Empirical research in this regard is, however, scarce. One aim of this study was to test whether adolescents' linguistic competence in German adds to the explanation of maternal socio-cultural adaptation difficulties in Germany. Another aim was to investigate whether the association between adolescents' linguistic competence and maternal socio-cultural adaptation difficulties differs depending on adolescents' involvement in family obligations. The sample comprised 185 ethnic German immigrant mother-adolescent dyads from the former Soviet Union (15.7 years old; 60% female). Results of Actor-Partner Interdependence Models, which were developed for dyad data analysis, indicated that mothers of adolescents with a good command of German indeed report fewer socio-cultural adaptation difficulties. The transmission effect from adolescent to mother was particularly pronounced when the adolescent was heavily involved in family obligations.