We focused on parent–child closeness during adolescence specifically because it is a key transitional period during which there is tremendous physical, social, emotional, and cognitive growth. Moreover, this period is sensitive to environmental inputs, especially social relationship experiences (Schriber & Guyer, 2016), which seem to significantly influence neurocognitive development, particularly the development of the neural circuitry that subserves memory, emotion-regulation, decision making, planning, and other higher order cognitive processes—collectively called executive functions—that enable goal-directed action and adaptive responses to novel/ambiguous situations (Sosic-Vasic et al., 2017).
