Date of Award
Spring 1996
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Fox, Robert
Second Advisor
Kipfmueller, Mark
Third Advisor
Laughlin, Timothy
Abstract
Parenting has been a topic of long standing interest in the social science literature. The most extensive research has been done on early child development and the parent-child relationship. There has been relatively less research done on the experience of parenting adolescents. Most of the research that has been done on parenting adolescents has focused on problematic adolescent behavior. Until the 1970's, most research about adolescents and parents was initiated from the premise that "normal" adolescent development was going to be very difficult on the adolescent as well as on the parent. Since the 1970's, a number of investigators have studied the experience of parenting an adolescent from a developmental perspective. The present study was designed to compare the experience of parenting an adolescent by looking at four variables: communication, conflict, parental satisfaction, and parental stress. Further, the study looked at four groups of mothers, mothers of younger male adolescents and younger female adolescents (ages 11 to 14) and mothers of older male adolescents and older female adolescents (ages 15 to 18), to assess what differences, if any, the groups showed with each of the four variables.