Dont Forget to Call Your Mother

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Dont Forget to Call Your Mother!

• A Study of Family
• Relationships
• by Dan McKenzie and Julia Mead

Based on the article Adolescent-Parent
Relationships and Leaving Home in Young
Adulthood from The Journal New Direction for
Childhood Development By T.G. OConnor, J.P.
Allen, K.L. Bell, and S.T. Hauser (1996)
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Introduction

• Our topic is how the relationship changes between
  parents and adolescents after leaving home.
• Previous Research
• Allen, Hauser, OConnor, Bell, Eickholt, 1993.
• Bell, Allen, Hauser, OConnor, 1996.

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The Research Question

• How does autonomy and relatedness in the
  adolescent-parent relationship predict the young
  adult-parent relationship in terms of contact and
  satisfaction as an adult ?

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Hypotheses

• A positive correlation exists between
  satisfaction with the parent-child relationship
  and measures of young-adult adjustment.
• Adolescents who displayed imbalances of autonomy
  and relatedness had more trouble separating from
  parents.
• Males in young adulthood from homes of divorced
  parents with the father leaving would report less
  satisfaction with parents.

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Method

• Study focused on 146 adolescents and their
  families at ages 14, 16, and 25
• Half of participants had been hospitalized for
  psychiatric disorders.
• Factors such as age, gender, and number of
  siblings were controlled.

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Procedure

• At age 14 and 16, problem solving tests were
  given.
• At age 25, questionnaires were given both to
  young adults and to someone they identified as
  knowing well to test adjustment, etc.

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Measures in the Study

• Autonomy and Relatedness- what does this mean?
• Frequency of Contact, on the phone or in person
• General Satisfaction with parent-child
  relationship
• Adjustment self-worth, social competence, etc

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Results

• Major findings include a significant positive
  correlation between satisfaction of
  parent-adolescent relationship and the frequency
  of their contact.
• There was also a significant negative correlation
  between the level of autonomy-relatedness during
  adolescent development and the frequency of
  contact as a young adult.
• No correlation was found between gender and
  adolescence-parent interaction, overall
  adjustment at age 25, or frequency of contact
  with parents in later adulthood.
• Also, the incidence of psychiatric
  hospitalization had no correlation to frequency
  of contact with parents.
• An adolescences satisfaction with the
  parent-adolescent relationship was not correlated
  to measures of overall adjustment as a young
  adult.

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Discussion

• The main point of this study was to answer the
  research question, which sought to find how
  autonomy-relatedness in adolescent-parent
  relationships affected general relationship
  satisfaction and frequency of contact in later
  adulthood.

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Weaknesses of the Study

• Weaknesses include a lack of diversity within the
  sample and the difficulty of quantifying
  something like relationship satisfaction. Also
  many of the results were inconclusive, so perhaps
  a larger sample size is needed.

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Thinking Critically part A

• The authors emphasize that autonomy and
  relatedness are complementary rather than
  opposing dimensions of relationships with
  parents. Explain, in your own words, how that
  could be true.

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Thinking Critically part B

• Do you find these data to confirm your own
  experiences as a developing adult? For example,
  how frequently do you have contact with your
  parents now that you are in college and do you
  see that as being related to your relationship
  with them when you were an adolescent?

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The End