3 Transactional processes between support and depressive symptoms 105 today” – daily dataset) or in reference to the parent that also participated, which was often a mother (69% - in biennial dataset). As previous within-family studies found different associations for maternal and paternal support with adolescent depressive symptoms (e.g., Shanahan et al., 2008; Vaughan et al., 2010), it is worthwhile to separate between maternal and paternal support in future studies. Fifth, other relevant timescales have not been included. The current study underlines the importance of looking beyond the frequently studied daily or annual time interval (Boele et al., 2020), because lagged effects on other timescales could be missed. Which specific timescale is appropriate for which parenting process is much of an open question. However, from a dynamic systems perspective (Granic, 2005; Lougheed, 2020; Smith & Thelen, 2003), development can be observed at different timescales, from seconds or minutes to years. These timescales may also influence each other, such that processes on a micro-timescale (e.g., conflictual parent-child interactions) give rise to processes on a macro-timescale (e.g., development of clinical depressive disorder) and vice versa. Nonetheless, theoretical models about normative family dynamics in adolescence should become more explicit regarding the timescales on which they are expected to take place, to guide empirical research and to prevent that erroneous conclusions might be drawn because relevant timescales are missed in empirical studies. In light of these limitations, it becomes evident that this study sets one step forward in our understanding of the complex dynamics between how adolescents perceive parenting and their depressive symptoms, by assessing “what goes first”. Although the results indicate that it may be adolescents’ emotional well-being that drives changes in perceived parenting (and not the other way around), parent-adolescent dynamics might very well be different from family to family (Bolger et al., 2019; Keijsers et al., 2016; Molenaar, 2004). Therefore, future research is urgently needed to assess the potential person-specific effects between parental support and adolescent depressive symptoms to tailor future interventions to the needs of individual families (Bamberger, 2016; Weeland et al., 2021). Conclusion This preregistered study included five datasets with measurement intervals from daily to biennial. The findings demonstrated that perceived parental support and depressive symptoms (or negative affect) of adolescents fluctuated across all timescales, which highlights the need to study how potential transactional processes unfold within families at different timescales. However, in the current study, fluctuations in perceived parental
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