The timing of puberty can impact negatively on the quality of parent-child interactions. In families of early maturing girls, it is suggested that a more pronounced discrepancy can exist between the early maturing adolescents’ striving for individuation and autonomy and parents’ aged based expectations about autonomous behaviour (Weichold, Büttig & Silbereisen, 2003). While pubertal maturation has been associated with negative emotions among adolescents, this emotionality may be partly attributed to parents who are not perceived to be sensitive to the adolescent’s needs (Paikoff & Brooks-Gunn, 1991). Consistent with this interpretation, research shows that the parent-child relationship in the families of early maturing boys and girls is characterised by more conflict and is associated with decreased closeness in the early and middle adolescent years to a greater extent than in other family types (see Weichold, Silbereisen, & Schmitt-Rodermund, 2003; Huddleston & Ge, 2003). It is suggested, however, that late maturation is also associated with problematic parent-child relationships because while late maturing girls strive for individuation too, the mothers of this group of adolescents are less accepting of such attempts (Weichold et
