Parents' Perceptions of Changes in Mother-Child and Father-Child Relationships During Adolescence

Abstract

Little research has examined parents'experiences of their children's transition to adolescence. The authors studied a sample of 170 mothers' and 159 fathers' open-ended descriptions of their experiences and investigated the role of prior relationship quality in predicting the nature of parents' experiences. Changes in the personal qualities of children, general closeness in the parent-adolescent relationship, and communication emerged as features of relationship change most salient to parents. Changes in parentchild acceptance and conflict during 4 years of adolescence were linked with mothers', but not fathers', positive and negative reactions to relationship change.