The Significance of Parental Reflective Function in the Adjustment of Young Adults

Abstract

Reflective function is the capacity to reflect on one's own thoughts and feelings, and those of others. Parental reflective function has been found significant for children's social and emotional development. However, research has mostly been restricted to mothers and to early stages of development, and there is a paucity of observations on the effects of parental reflective function in later stages. The aim of the present study is to explore the significance of mothers' and fathers' reflective function for the adjustment of their children during early adulthood. It is an extension of a previous study that examined the significance of parental reflective function for adolescent adjustment. During home visits, 105 adolescents aged 14-18 years reported on indices of parental behavior (involvement, warmth, and control), and their fathers and mothers were interviewed in order to assess their reflective function. Three to five years later, the participants, now aged 18-22 years, reported on level of symptoms, selfperception, self-descriptions and romantic relations. The findings indicated that parental reflective function, but not parental behaviors that express warmth and control, predicted adjustment during early adulthood. Similar to our previous finding, parental reflective function was associated with both desirable outcomes and possible costs among young adults: higher levels of self-descriptions and romantic relations, on the one hand, and more internalizing problems and less positive self-perception, on the other. It is concluded that parental reflective function affects their children's adjustment also during early adulthood. However, the benefits of reflective function are inextricably linked to its costs.

The Role of Parental Reflective Functioning in the Relation between Parents’ Self-Critical Perfectionism and Psychologically Controlling Parenting Towards Adolescents

“…This is unfortunate because adolescence is a developmental period marked by changes in parents' roles, by children's increased strivings for independence, and by changes in emotional arousal (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, & Beyers, 2019;Steinberg & Morris, 2001). As such, adolescence is a developmental stage in which parents' reflective abilities may be challenged and in which these abilities are at the same time particularly important for adolescents' social and emotional well-being and for the parentadolescent interaction (Benbassat & Shulman, 2016;Milan, Ramirez, & Carlone, 2017;Kobak, Abbott, Zisk, & Bounoua, 2017). By examining the role of parental reflective functioning among parents of adolescents, rather than among parents of young children, it becomes possible to include the adolescents' perception of parenting behavior.…”

Adapting to the changing needs of adolescents: parenting practices and challenges to sensitive attunement

“…Parents' capacities to attend to the adolescent’s thoughts, feelings and intentions have been described in terms of reflective function 34 , parental mindfulness 35 and meta-emotion philosophy 36 . This parental ability to attend to the adolescent’s experience in a non-reactive manner has been related to more positive parenting practices and less adolescent psychopathology 37, 38 .…”

Reflective Functioning in Children and Adolescents With and Without an Anxiety Disorder

“…According to Benbassat and Priel (2012) , who found a similar pattern between paternal RF and adolescents’ internalizing problems, high RF capacities would increase self-consciousness and the accuracy of self-perception, for better and for worse. While being able to more accurately reflect upon oneself, youths with good RF capacities would also be more conscious of their difficulties and of less desirable aspects of themselves, thus more prone to report emotional or behavioral difficulties ( Benbassat and Priel, 2012 ; Benbassat and Shulman, 2016 ). This hypothesis is coherent with our finding that RF-Self was associated with youths’ self-reported – but not parent-reported – internalizing symptoms.…”

“…Indeed, during this developmental period, the father–child relation is thought to be particularly significant, notably in the separation–individuation process ( Shulman and Seiffge-Krenke, 1997 ). One study found an intriguing positive association between fathers’ – but not mothers’ – RF and adolescents’ internalizing symptoms ( Benbassat and Priel, 2012 ; Benbassat and Shulman, 2016 ). The authors emphasized the impact of fathers’ outcomes in the psychological adjustment of their teenagers.…”