The pursuit of happiness is a guaranteed right in the U.S. Constitution, yet teenage happiness is relatively understudied. Several key variables have been previously identified as possible causative agents of teenage happiness: parental relationships, friendship quality, and religiosity. We hypothesize that substance use and deviant behaviors act as the pathway through which parental relationships and religiosity positively affect adolescent happiness. We used data from the 1994 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (ADD Health). The survey contained >6000 adolescent respondents from U.S. private and public schools with a total response rate of 79%. Our dependent variable, happiness, was created as an index from the following items: suicidal tendency, depression, and life satisfaction, with higher scores indicating greater relative happiness. The independent variables included in the analysis were biological sex, age, race, religiosity, parental relationship quality, hours of sleep, exercise per week, friendship quality, deviance, substance use, and self-reported general health. Several multivariate linear regressions were estimated to determine the independent effects of substance use and deviance on adolescent happiness and how these effects potentially mediate those of religiosity and parental relationships. The analysis shows a positive association from parental relationships and religiosity on happiness. The results show that when substance use and deviance are added to the regression, the impact of parental relationships and religiosity on the happiness index are reduced. These findings indicate that parents have the greatest effect on their adolescent’s happiness when they help their children avoid social deviance and substance use.

INTRODUCTION: Increasingly, qualitative research suggests that high-quality camp programming is correlated with a number of favorable outcomes such as independence and social skills (Thurber, Scanlin, Scheuler, & Henderson, 2006). The current study examined administrative data from a residential camp in Colorado to assess their achievement of youth development outcomes, including affinity for nature, camp connectedness, teamwork, friendship skills, and family citizenship.

METHODS: 564 participants attending summer camp during 2013 and 2014 (66.8% female) completed questionnaires from the American Camp Association’s Youth Outcome Battery. Participants were divided by age group. Questionnaire administration took place on the third or fourth Sunday of each month long session, using a retrospective pre-test design.

RESULTS: Campers reported a moderate degree of perceived change from pre-camp to post-camp status for all outcomes. Mean scores fluctuated around the ACA national average, resulting in scores above the 50^th percentile for Family Citizenship (64 – 67^th percentile) and Teamwork (57^th percentile) and slightly below the 50^th percentile for Affinity to Nature (48^th percentile) and Friendship Skills (45^th percentile) outcomes. Outcome scores were positively correlated with one another; Camp Connectedness and Friendship Skills were particularly highly correlated with other outcomes.

DISCUSSION: This camp was moderately successful in achieving development outcomes. Future efforts to quantify development outcomes at this and other residential camps will allow for systematic improvements in delivery of the classic camp experience.