Adolescents' theories about the development of their relationships with parents.

Abstract

Using a retrospective method, we assessed late adolescents' developmental theories about their affective relationships with their parents. Subjects used drawings and questionnaire ratings to portray their relationships with parents at five points between infancy and the present. From infancy to their current age, adolescents portrayed their relationships in two major ways. They perceived themselves as gaining in responsibility, dominance, independence, and similarity from infancy to the present, whereas they portrayed their parents as experiencing a decline on these dimensions. For variables indicating closeness and love, however, there was a striking discontinuity in these linear trends: Although adolescents perceived linear trends from infancy to adolescence, they depicted their current relationships as involving a great deal more love and closeness. They also portrayed their relationships with mothers and fathers somewhat differently. More responsibility was felt towards the mothers and they were portrayed as especially friendly, but subjects felt more similar to their fathers, whom they perceived as dominant. We interpreted the results as indicating that late adolescents constructed theories of the affective components of their relationships with their parents to serve the needs of separation while maintaining a close affective tie to the parents.

Adolescents in Transition to Adulthood: Parental Support, Relationship Satisfaction, and Post-transition Adjustment

“…Some researchers have reported improvements in relations with parents following the high school transition, suggesting that the ambivalence characterizing adolescentparent relations may be ameliorated once this milestone is achieved. Pipp et al (1985) designed a retrospective measure to assess college students' perceptions of their relations with parents during different life stages. Mothers were generally portrayed as closer than fathers, but relations with both parents were viewed as progressively more distant from infancy through adolescence.…”

Individuation in Adults’ Family Interactions: An Observational Study

“…Conflicts decreased. Regarding individuality, reports of an age-related increase in symmetry between parents and children beginning in early adolescence and continuing into adulthood support the assumptions of individuation theory (Furman and Buhrmester 1992;Noack and Buhl 2004b;Pipp et al 1985;Smollar and Youniss 1989;White et al 1983;Youniss and Smollar 1985).…”

My Mother: My Best Friend? Adults’ Relationships with Significant Others Across the Lifespan

“…In line with the hypothesis, relative power vis-à-vis one's own children decreased. This, of course, was expected given the young age of participating young adults' children (e.g., Pipp et al 1985;Russell et al 1998, regarding the course of power). An additional u-shaped quadratic trend regarding power vis-à-vis one's own children corresponds with the power seen vis-à-vis fathers.…”