Correlation between Personal Characteristics of Junior Adolescents and Their Perception of Relations with Mothers and Fathers

Abstract

The article is devoted to the research into the correlation of personal characteristics of adolescents aged 11-12 with their perception of the relations with parents. Two hypotheses were put forward: 1) the existence of a connection between the teenagers’ perception of the child-parent relations and such personal characteristics of adolescents as sociability, self-confidence, responsibility, sensitivity, social courage, risk appetite, and anxiety; 2) the differences in the correlations between the personal characteristics of adolescents and their perceptions of the relations with mothers and the relations with fathers. The research involved 106 adolescents (52 girls and 54 boys) aged 11-12 years. All the testees study in schools in Ekaterinburg (Russia) and are brought up in two-parent families. Constructs: Children‘s Personality Questionnaire (12PF/CPQ) (adaptated by E.M. Aleksandrovskaya); The Parent-Child Interaction questionnaire (I.M. Markovskaya); Family Drawing Test (Burns and Kaufman). The research results showed that contrary to the established opinion about the conflictual nature of the relations with parents during the teen years, the majority of adolescents (84%) are more or less satisfied with the relations. At the same time, they consider both their mother and father to be demanding, strict, and controlling them. Boys note the high demands by their fathers, and the girls feel more control and exactingness on the part of their mothers. The most personal characteristics associated with the relations with both parents are responsibility, sociability, and social courage. The level of anxiety among adolescents is higher the higher is the mother’s authority and less acceptance of her child, and the more demanding but inconsistent in these requirements, the less accepting the child is the father. Positive correlations were found between excitability and the nervous tension of children and severity of mothers and fathers. Such personal characteristics as a child’s self-confidence and sensitivity are more associated with a good relationship with their mother, and the appetite for risk is more related to the relationship with their father.