Parent child relationships
• Parent- child relationships differ from peer relationships
• Parents posses superior experience, psychological maturity, and greater material resources and power – mainly ‘vertical’
○ One of their chief tasks is to communicate this knowledge to the child.
• A peer is a social equal, someone who functions at a similar level of behavioural complexity- often someone of similar age – mainly ‘horizontal’
○ Some peers can possess more wisdom that they can pass on however, this usually goes both ways where the other child will have more knowledge in something else.
• Both types of relationship meet developmental needs and are important
relationship with parents in adolescence
• Often perceived that movement from middle childhood towards adolescence and early adulthood is a developmental process of moving away from parents and moving towards peers
• Only partially true
• Parents always usually come back.
Becoming less true…thoughts?
changing family structure
• Pre 1970s the ‘nuclear family’ was the norm
• The nuclear family only really persisted for around 100 years, before this children were raised by extended family.
• Now more complex structures:
• Single-parent families
○ Increased single families due to war and death.
○ Male headed families also present due to death in childbirth.
• Blended families
• Extended families
• Changes in marriage:
• Decrease in marriage rate
• Increase in cohabitation
• Increase in divorce
changes to Aus family
1980-2010
• Decrease in marriage rates/1000: 9.3 to 5.5
• Increase in cohabitation before marriage: 23% to 78%
• Increase in divorce rates
• Increase in lone parent families: 12% to 21%
• However, 72% still live in “intact” families (at least one child born to/adopted by both parents, no step-children)
• Increase in average age of first parenting: from early or late 20s, to early or late 30s
• Increased career focus in women.
• Decrease in number of children per woman
• Increase in no. of children born outside marriage: 12% to 34% (but to cohabiting rather than single women)
types of parenting
authoritatian
authoritative **
uninvolved
permissive
parenting depends upon…
• “Parenting” is not just about parents’ style, but also depends on:
• Child effects = a transactional relationship
○ Parent scan have different relationships with different children in the family.
○ Must also consider the developmental stage of the child.
• Social class
• Ethnicity and cultural values
○ A lot of studies performed in a Western setting.
• Availability of social and material resources
○ Easier to be authoritative when you have the resources.
• Environmental effects
changing the parent-child relationship
- The developing abilities of children (should) change the parent-child relationship during middle childhood
- Children tend to spend less time with parents than during early childhood (8-12), but parents are still important sources of practical and emotional support
- Parental responsiveness is critical, but so is parental monitoring
- Studies show that parental monitoring, especially as children move into early adolescence, is a key protective mechanism
- Challenges to parental monitoring?
- Everyday issues make monitoring difficult.
parent relationships in adolescence
• Despite popular opinion, most adolescents report
having close and warm relationships with
their parents
• Adolescent parent-child relationships
• Based on those established in childhood
○ Need to put in the ground work in childhood.
• Become more egalitarian
• Adolescents increase self-regulation; seek control, choice, and autonomy (but with support)
• Want to be able to do these things, but still receive support from parents in times of stress.
PVF
• Promotion of Volitional Functioning (PVF) = a strategy whereby parents guide or scaffold adolescents’ decision making (rather than imposing a solution or ceding control) → autonomy and self-determination.
Not saying “I told you so”.
conflict in parent child relationship
• Conflict may arise from
• Discrepancies between expectations of responsibilities and freedoms
• Views on appropriate and inappropriate behaviour
○ Includes dress, peer relationships etc.
• Everyday issues
• Conflict more common in early adolescence than later
• Peaks around 14-15, relationships stabilises around 18-19.
• The adolescent developmental period often interacts with major developmental transition periods for parents => can heighten conflict
• Physical biological and hormonal changes.
• Most research is done on changes for the child not that parent.
• Parents are looking after children and their own parents.
• Often adults are starting to question their identity and purpose in life.
• Less than 10% of families experience significant intergenerational conflict
relationship with peers
• Neo-Freudian theorist Henry Stack Sullivan believed that social needs change as we get older and are gratified through different kinds of social relationships at different ages
• Until about age 6 the parent-child relationship is central for providing tender care and nurturance
• Then peers become increasingly important
○ At first, children need playmates
○ Then they need acceptance by the peer group
○ Then around age 9 to 12, children begin to need intimacy in the form of a close friendship
§ Heightened gender segregation around this time.
• ‘Age and stage’ understanding of peer interactions and relationship
middle childhood relationships with peers
In middle childhood…
• Deepening in social understanding
• Consolidation of prosocial and antisocial/withdrawal behaviour characteristics in interactions with peers
• Both change and consolidation in friendships, peer status, social networks and dominance hierarchies
• Increased gender segregation
• Emergence of problematic patterns of behaviour in relation to peers e.g. social withdrawal, aggression, peer victimisation and bullying
• Growth in children’s awareness and self-reflection regarding peer relations
• Capacity to reflect comes from the way the child has been supported by the parents.
• Consolidation of links between aspects of peer relations and psychosocial functioning e.g. anxiety, depression, conduct disorders
• Established processes of peer influence and socialisation emerge and are observable
• Peer group operates separate to the parents and often takes on their norms (however, this is mediated by the values they gain from parents).
relationship with peers in adolescence
In adolescence…
• Peer influences particularly strong
• Peer status becomes entrenched and has substantial impact on psychosocial adjustment
• Simultaneous increase and reduction in gendered behaviour and gender-specific peer relations
○ Less gender segregation.
○ More behaviour for what is considered acceptable for genders.
• Simultaneous increase in both intensity of specific peer relationships/friendships and importance of social networks
• Emerging and growing importance of romantic relationships with peers
Either thinking about them or real.
changing peer networks
- In late childhood, boys and girls become members of same-sex cliques, or small friendship groups, and have little to do with the other sex
- Boy cliques and girl cliques then begin to interact during early-late adolescence
• Same-sex cliques provide a secure base for romantic relationships - Mixed-sex cliques are more obvious among (but not restricted to) popular adolescents
- As less popular peers also form mixed-sex cliques, a new peer-group structure, the crowd, completes its evolution
• The crowd is a collection of several mixed-sex cliques
• The crowd is central to arranging organised social activities, such as parties, and provides opportunities to get to know members of the other sex as friends and as potential romantic partners - Couples form and the crowd disintegrates or ‘loosens’ in late high school
• The crowd served its purpose of bringing boys and girls together
friendships
- Friendship is a special form of peer relationship that is both voluntary and mutually affirmed, and which is typically characterised by feelings of companionship, affection and intimacy
- Emerge from peer relationships.
- Friendship is distinct from peer acceptance or popularity
- “Whereas peer acceptance and popularity are the unilateral indices of a group’s opinion about an individual, friendship indexes a mutual relationship between two individuals.” (Bukowski and Hoza, 1989)
- That is, friendship is essentially a dyadic relationship rather than a social one.
function of friendship in middle childhood and adolescence
- Fosters social competence (e.g. prosocial skills, problem-solving skills, conflict negotiation and resolution, tolerance of others’ difference)
- It is not the absence of conflict or difference that makes for a good friendship but rather the effective resolution of it.
- Gives ego support
- Provides emotional security
- Is a source of
- Intimacy and affection
- Guidance and assistance
- Companionship and stimulation
- Is a basis for reliable alliance (Asher & Parker, 1989)
- This is when we learn what a healthy and safe relationship feels like. We carry this with us for the rest of our lives.
social media and friendships
• Castells (in Chambers, 2013): three modes of communication coexist in the social media context
1. interpersonal communication: designated sender(s) and receivers(s) are the subjects of communication and communication is interactive e.g. email, IM 2. mass communication: traditionally one-directional sent from one source to many receivers, the content of communication has the potential to be diffused to society at large e.g. YouTube 3. mass self-communication: the message is self generated, the potential receiver(s) is self-directed and the electronic retrieval is self-directed. Mass self-communication combines features of mass communication and interpersonal communication e.g. Facebook
social media and intimacy
- In a study of media use and perceived relationship intimacy in a university student sample:
- Particular communication channels were preferred for personal communication, determined by the level of intimacy of the connection but type of communication mediation did not necessarily enhance or reduce relationship quality.
- The most influential predictor of the quality of an interaction turned out to be the type of relationship.
- The telephone was viewed as equivalent to face-to-face conversation in terms of quality; online interaction (mainly email) was perceived to be of slightly lower quality, but the differences were very small
- Individuals in close relationships had high-quality interactions regardless of the medium through which they interacted
friendship as community status
• Although Facebook and Twitter are usually depicted as sites for initiating new connections, adolescents emphasise the opposite: that IM and social network sites are mainly used for socialising with people they already know from school and other leisure and sports activities.
• Like adults, adolescents are grounding their online relationships in offline contexts
HOWEVER…
• The design and organisation of the social network sites guide young people towards publicly recording and displaying their personal connections
• Public presentation of friend lists influences the processes and performance of friendship in everyday life, online and offline: friendship as community status.
romantic relationships in asolescence
- Dating
- Recreational, fun
- Tends to follow a dating script, based on gender roles
- Early relationships less enduring and more superficial
- Cultural differences relate to dating age and prevalence
- Relationships for homosexual adolescents more difficult
phases of adolescent relationships
• According to Brown (1999), adolescent relationships evolve through four phases
• Initiation phase – in early adolescence, the focus is on the self: To see oneself as a person capable of relating to members of the other sex in a romantic way
○ Quite egocentric.
• Status phase – in mid-adolescence, having a romantic relationship with the “right kind” of partner is important for the status it brings in the larger peer group
○ Refusal to date someone below your popularity status.
- Affection phase – in late adolescence, the focus is on the relationship: Romantic relationships become more personal, caring relationships
- Bonding phase – in the transition to early adulthood, the emotional intimacy achieved in the affection phase is connected to a long-term commitment to create a lasting attachment bond
relationships in the digital age
- Conducted a study of young adults’ (N=244, 66% female) attitudes towards electronic partner monitoring (EPM) i.e. use of socially interactive technology and media to monitor a romantic partner’s behaviour including their activities, location and interactions with others.
- Past research has suggested EPM may have positive effects on perceived intimacy and closeness and/or negative effects when there is relationship conflict or different levels of EPM comfort.
- Much of the previous research has assumed EPM to be a negative relationship behaviour that may even signify concurrent or later abuse
- Sought to gauge the perspective of young adults in relationship, on the use of EPM; in particular, their beliefs about how healthy or unhealthy these behaviours are
conclusions of EPM studies
- Young adults of both genders differentiate between different types of EPM in terms of how healthy or unhealthy they perceive them to possibly be, for example:
- Using a mobile or FB to ask a partner what they are up to = more healthy
- Sharing mobile phone PIN with partner = neutral
- Calling/messaging regularly to ask who partner is with = less healthy
- Very little difference between genders
- Young adults in relationships are actively engaged in thinking about and making decisions regarding electronic partner monitoring (EPM)
broader context of development
• Different aspects of development do not occur in isolation but are integrated: brain, biology, cognitive, self/psychological, social
• For example: brain development drives development of cognitive ability and executive functioning as well a self-regulation, which are implicated also in psychological and social development
• Social development drives development of identity as well as moral development, self-regulation and executive functioning
Development of identity drives social development (relationships) etc.
