Mothers' Parenting Stress and Adolescents' Emotional ... - IOS Press

International Journal of Developmental Science 9 (2015) 147–156 DOI 10.3233/DEV-150169 IOS Press

Mothers’ Parenting Stress and Adolescents’ Emotional Separation: The Role of Youngsters’ Self Orientation Francesca Ligaa,∗ , Sonia Ingogliab , Maria Grazia Lo Cricchiob and Alida Lo Cocob a Department b Department

of Human and Social Sciences, Università degli Studi di Messina, Messina, Italy of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy

Abstract The study examined the association among mothers’ parenting stress, adolescents’ emotional separation and self-orientation toward connectedness. Participants were 194 Italian adolescents, aged from 15 to 19 years (mean age = 17.39, SD = 1.18), and their mothers, aged from 33 to 64 years (mean age = 44.35, SD = 5.40). General findings showed that adolescents’ emotional separation may not necessarily be associated with their mothers’ parenting stress, but both of these variables may be related to adolescents’ personal characteristics, which may contribute to define parent-child relationship. Particularly, adolescents’ orientation towards a connected self was associated negatively with emotional separation and parenting stress. These findings indicate potential pathways to mitigate the stress in facing the normative challenges of adolescence. Keywords Parenting stress, parent-adolescent relationship, emotional separation, self-orientation

Parenting stress is just stress linked to parent’s conditions or feelings experienced when a parent perceives that the changes and demands associated with parenting exceed his/her resources or personal capabilities available to meet these demands (Abidin, 1992; Mulsow, Caldera, Pursley, Reifman, & Huston, 2002; Vermaes, Janssens, Mullaart, Vinck, & Gerris, 2008). Mothers and fathers both report that the adolescent period (14–18 years) is the most difficult stage to parent their children (Deater-Deckard, 2004; Kim, Conger, & Lorenz, 2001; Pasley & Gecas, 1984; Putnick et al., 2010). In facing the normative challenges of adolescence, parents often experience a certain amount of stress and feeling of anxiety and uncertainty about the appropriateness of some decisions or behaviors in parenting their adolescent children. They are worried and upset by the “bickering” and “squabbling” taking place ∗ Address

for correspondence Francesca Liga, Department of Human and Social Sciences, Università degli Studi di Messina, Via T. Cannizzaro, 278, 98122 Messina, Italy. Tel.: +39090711402; Fax: +39090710124; E-mail: [email protected]

during this time with their children, and they are likely to hold on to the affect following a negative interaction with them (Crnic & Low, 2002; Ingoldsby et al., 2006; Seigner, Vermulst, & Gerris, 2002). During adolescence, the parent-child relationship is forced into new and different patterns and the resulting tensions represent increased risk for parenting stress. This relationship requires to become progressively more symmetrical and equal. Additionally the hierarchical parent-child system needs to develop towards an egalitarian peer-peer system (Anderson, 2008; Carrà & Marta, 1995; Scabini, 2000). Many authors have suggested that adolescents’ experience of emotional distancing from their parents is crucial to redefine relationships and family boundaries (Beyers, Goossens, Van Calster, & Duriez, 2005; Ingoglia, Lo Coco, Liga, & Lo Cricchio, 2011; Lamborn & Groh, 2009). Emotional separation involves moving away from the childhood representations of mother and father as omnipotent and omniscient toward a de-idealized representation of them, and subsequently being not too dependent on them when encountering problems and

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taking responsibility for their own behavior (Ryan & Lynch, 1989). According to Lamborn and Steinberg (1993), separation from parents involves the “development of mature, realistic, and balanced perceptions of parents that accompanies the acceptance of primary responsibility for personal decision making, values, and emotional stability” (p. 483). When parents do not support the need of emotional separation, adolescents could experience a sense of obligation and coercion and the parent-child relationship may become fought with feelings of hostility and conflict. Many conflicts are caused by the greater struggle in adolescents for stressing their own individuality and the reluctance in mothers to reduce their children’s dependence on them (Collins & Russel, 1991; DeaterDeckard, 2004; Joshi & Gutierrez, 2006; Vierhaus, Lohaus, Schmitz, & Schoppmeier, 2013). These conflicts seem to be more pronounced in Mediterranean families characterized by high degrees of emotional bonding and support, as well as restriction from parents (Inguglia, Ingoglia, Liga, Lo Coco, & Lo Cricchio, 2015; Scabini, Marta, & Lanz, 2006). Above all, adolescents’ questioning of motives for mothers’ rules and legitimacy of their authority represents a damaging attack to the traditional maternal role. They may also view these conflicts as rejections of basic values that they have fostered and, at the same time, as violations of their expectations. Some studies carried out in Italy confirm these findings outlining that Mediterranean mothers do not just have the task of child-rearing, but also the function of socialization and transmission of norms and values (Scabini, 2000). Rizzo, Schiffrin, and Liss (2013), in a recent study on motherhood and stress, suggested that “intense” motherhood, characterized in part by the belief that mothers have a more important parenting role than fathers, is associated with higher levels of stress. Especially in Southern Italian culture, the centrality of mothers is even more emphasized. Tasks traditionally assigned to fathers, such as guidance in the choice of work or career, are being performed by mothers (Scabini, 2000). So, navigating adolescence is rather tricky due to the combination of adolescents’ efforts for emotional separation (Goossens, 2006; Ingoglia et al., 2011; Steinberg & Silk, 2002) and parental difficulty to accept their adolescents’ rebellion and identity experimentation as a developmental path (Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett, 1996; Vierhaus et al., 2013). In re-negotiating family relations, adolescents may focus on their attempt to distance themselves from parents and assert their own wishes. Alternatively, they may

focus on the relationship and try to maintain harmony by complying with their parents’ wishes (Phinney, Kim-Jo, Osorio, & Vilhjalmsdottir, 2005). Adolescents’ different attitudes in coping with changes in their relationship with parents may reflect their abilities related to self-boundary regulation. Self–other boundaries determine not only where “I” ends and “You” begins, but the space between “Us”. The process by which individuals regulate self–other boundaries may be viewed as characterized by several facets, each of which signals, in a different way, the degree to which the self is embedded in the relationship with the “other”. One dimension of self–other boundary regulation may be represented by self-orientations that can be defined as the constellations of thoughts, feelings, and actions concerning one’s relationship to others and the self as distinct from others. In the literature, two basic orientations of the self have been described: the independent, separate self and the interdependent, connected self (Abele & Wojciszke, 2007; Cross, Bacon, & Morris, 2000; Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stivey, & Surrey, 1991; Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003; Singelis, 1994). Persons for whom independence, separation, hierarchical organization of interchange, and justice are central have a highly developed separate self. On the contrary, persons for whom interdependency, connection with others, egalitarian interchange, and concern for individuals (including themselves) in their own contexts are central, have a highly developed connected self (Abele & Wojciszke, 2007; Cross et al., 2000; Jordan et al., 1991; Sedikides et al., 2003). Generally, adolescents oriented towards a connectedself seem to be more concerned with parental feelings of rejection and exclusion linked to their efforts to reach a higher independence (Ingoglia et al., 2011; Lo Cricchio, Liga, Ingoglia, & Lo Coco, 2012). Thus, they tend to show more hesitation in distancing from parents and they are inclined to pay more attention towards parents’ feelings of anxiety and fear (Cross et al., 2000; Singelis, 1994). Being able to perceive parents’ perspective and concern about separation, they are more likely to be successful in expressing their opinions and ideas without hurting or distressing parents, too. Consequently, mothers may perceive their parenting as effective to maintain family cohesion and they may be less prone to feel distressed in response to difficulties and changes in their relationships to their children. Thus, it could be supposed that adolescents’ orientation of the self toward connectedness could promote parents’ perception of emotional separation as a

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normative developmental task and not as a threat to the pre-existing family functioning reducing parental stress and feelings of anxiety.

Aims and Hypotheses The general aim of the study was to analyze the relation between mothers’ parenting stress, adolescents’ emotional separation from them and self-orientation toward connectedness. Based on previous considerations, we hypothesized that mothers’ parenting stress would be related to adolescents’ emotional separation; nevertheless, we also hypothesized that this association could be partly due to adolescents’ self-orientation toward connectedness. In order to evaluate these hypotheses, we tested two theoretical models. The first one hypothesized that youngsters’ emotional separation was associated positively with mothers’ parenting stress. Particularly, we expected that mothers of adolescents showing high levels of emotional separation would report high levels of parenting stress. The second model hypothesized that adolescents’ self-orientation toward connectedness was related to emotional separation and mothers’ parenting stress. Specifically, we expected that (a) youngsters’ selforientation toward connectedness was negatively related to both emotional separation and mothers’ parenting stress, and (b) when we take into account adolescents’ self-orientation toward connectedness, emotional separation from parents and mothers’ parenting stress would be no longer associated.

and 1% came from a family in which one of the parents had died. Mothers were socioeconomically diverse (14% professional or managerial, 36% tradespeople, 15% skilled workers, 33% unskilled workers, 2% retired). Of all participants, 55% had mothers who had obtained their secondary school-leaving certificate. Procedure As a first step in the sampling procedure, four schools were randomly selected from the city of Palermo registries of secondary schools in metropolitan area of Palermo. As a second step, four classes were randomly selected from each school. For the students of selected classes, participation in the study was voluntary and written parental consent was obtained; participants represented 90% of the initially selected students. The self-report questionnaires were administered to adolescents during the regular school day at the start of the second term (February). Data collection took place in small group sessions under the supervision of four undergraduate students in psychology and took no longer than 50 minutes. The self-report questionnaire was administered to mothers at home. Measures Adolescents’ emotional separation

The sample comprised 181 Italian middle and late adolescents attending four secondary schools in the area of Palermo (Sicily), and their mothers. Adolescents (67% females) aged from 15 to 19 years (mean age = 17.39, SD = 1.19); their mothers aged from 33 to 64 years (mean age = 44.38, SD = 5.41). All adolescents were Caucasian. Participation in the study was voluntary and written parental consent was obtained for minors. All youngsters were living in one household with their parents; 94% of them came from intact, twoparents families, 5% had divorced or separated parents,

Adolescents were administered the Emotional Autonomy Scale (EAS; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986) to assess their emotional separation from mothers. Because of several negative correlates associated with emotional autonomy, as indicated by high total EAS scores, some authors (e.g., Ryan & Lynch, 1989) have argued that this scale does not measure emotional autonomy. Beyers et al. (2005) found empirical support for two higher-order constructs of separation and detachment. Following their approach we constructed a separation scale measured by means of the subscales: (a) de-idealization (4 items, e.g., “My mother hardly ever make mistakes,” reverse coded), which taps the extent to which adolescents relinquish childish perceptions of parental omnipotence, (b) non-dependency (4 items, e.g., “I go to my mother for help before trying to solve a problem by myself”, reverse coded), which taps the extent to which adolescents abandoned the childish dependency from parents, (c) non-imitation (2 items, e.g., “There are things that I will do differently from


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Method Participants


my mother when I become a parent”), which taps the extent to which adolescents will behave in a different way from their parents, and (d) privacy (2 items, e.g., “There are some things about me that my mother don’t know”), which taps the extent to which parents do not know everything about their children. The items were presented as declarative statements; respondents were asked to indicate their degree of agreement with each item on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). In the present study, the subscales had adequate internal consistency: Cronbach’s ␣ was 0.65, 0.75, 0.74, and 0.78 for de-idealization, non-dependency, non-imitation, and privacy, respectively. Adolescents’ self-orientation toward connectedness

(perceived quality of the relationship between parents and children in areas such as communication and affection). Some samples of SIPA items are: “My child often gets in trouble when he or she is with his or her friends”, “I often feel guilty after I get angry at my child”, and “My child shows affection toward me”. Higher scores indicate higher parenting stress. Mothers were asked to indicate the degree of agreement with each statement on a 5-point scale from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). In the present study, the subscales had adequate internal consistency (Cronbach’s ␣ = 0.75, 0.79, and 0.84 for adolescent domain, parent domain, and adolescent-parent relationship domain, respectively). Plan of Data Analysis

Mothers were administered the Stress Index for Parents of Adolescents (SIPA; Sheras, Abidin, & Konold, 1998) to assess the levels of distress associated to parenting. The SIPA is a 90-item self-report questionnaire designed to assess parenting stress across three domains: (a) the adolescent domain measures parenting stress as a function of the characteristics of the adolescent (moodiness/emotional liability, social isolation/withdrawal, delinquency/antisocial, failure to achieve or persevere); (b) the parent domain measures parenting stress as a function of the effect of parenting on parents’ other life roles (life restriction, relationship with spouse/partner, social alienation, incompetence/guilt); and (c) the adolescent-parent relationship domain measures the perceived quality of the relationship parents have with their children

The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique implemented with EQS 6.1 (Bentler, 2006) was used to test the hypothesized models using maximum likelihood estimation. In addition, robust statistics were used in order to account for the multivariate non-normality of variables (normalized estimate of Mardia coefficient = 5.25, p < 0.001); robust statistics included the Satorra-Bentler χ2 test statistic and robust Comparative Fit Index (CFI; Satorra & Bentler, 1994), both of which adjust standard errors to calculate parameter estimates in situations where multivariate normality cannot be assumed. To assess the fit of the model, a number of goodness of fit measures were used. The first was χ2 , which is a measure of the deviance between the sample and the model covariance matrices but it is highly sensitive to sample size. It tends to reject models that hold approximately in the population if the sample size is large (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993). Additional goodness of fit measures were therefore examined. The CFI suggested by Bentler (2006) represents how much better the model fits as compared to the null model, that is, all indicators specified as uncorrelated. Although standards for goodness of fit indices are difficult to establish (Marsh, Balla, & McDonald, 1988), index values equal to or higher than 0.90 as suggested by Bentler and Bonett (1980) have commonly been used to indicate adequate fit. The Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) is the discrepancy per degree of freedom of the model and data covariance matrices (Steiger, 1990). Browne and Cudeck (1993) suggest that values in the range between 0.08 and 0.05 represent a reasonable error of approximation and values equal to or less than 0.05 represent a close fit.

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Adolescents were administered a subscale from the Relationship Self Inventory (RSI; Pearson et al., 1998) to assess their general self-orientation toward connectedness. The subscale connected self taps the extent to which interdependency, connection with others, egalitarian interchange, and concern for individuals in their own context are central to the description of the self (12 items, e.g., “Caring about other people is important to me”). The items were presented as declarative statements; participants were asked to rate on a 5-point scale (1 = very untrue; 5 = very true) the degree to which each statement was true for themselves. In the present study, the subscale had adequate internal consistency (Cronbach’s ␣ = 0.72). Mothers’ parenting stress


adolescent’s emotional separation was positively predicted by mothers’ age.

Results Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Relations between Mother’s Parenting Stress, Adolescents’ Emotional Separation and Self-Orientation towards Connectedness

Means, standard deviations, and Pearson correlation coefficients are presented in Table 1. Variables measuring adolescent’s emotional separation were associated positively with some variables of mother’s parenting stress, specifically stress in adolescent domain and stress in adolescent-parent relationship domain. They were also related negatively to self-orientation towards connectedness. Lastly, variables measuring mother’s parenting stress were related negatively to adolescents’ connected self.

A latent variable SEM was constructed to examine the relation between mother’s parenting stress, adolescent’s emotional separation and connected self. The model evidenced a good fit to the data (see Table 2). Figure 2 presents the standardized parameter estimates. As hypothesized, adolescents’ connected self negatively predicted both emotional separation and mother’s parenting stress. However, differently than hypothesized, adolescent’s emotional separation still significantly predicted mother’s parenting stress, even though its effect was lowered. We also tested the indirect effect of connected self on parenting stress through emotional separation; it was not significant (the unstandardized estimate was –0.03, z = 1.83, ns). In order to test the significance of the direct effect of adolescents’ emotional separation on mother’s parenting stress when connected self is specified, we also tested a constrained model in which the path from emotional separation to parenting

Relations between Mothers’ Parenting Stress and Adolescent’s Emotional Separation A latent variable SEM was constructed to evaluate whether mother’s parenting stress was related to adolescent’s emotional separation. The model evidenced a good fit to the data (see Table 2). Figure 1 presents the standardized parameter estimates. As hypothesized, mother’s parenting stress was positively predicted by adolescent’s emotional separation and age. Moreover,

Table 1 Means, Standard Deviations, and Pearson Correlation Coefficients of Study Variables 1 De-idealization 2 Non-dependency 3 Non-imitation 4 Privacy 5 Stress in parent domain 6 Stress in adolescent domain 7 Stress in relationship domain 8 Connected self 9 Adolescent’s age 10 Adolescent’s gender 11 Mother’s age

1

2

– 0.52∗∗∗ 0.54∗∗∗ 0.45∗∗∗ 0.12 0.10 0.14 –0.12 0.17∗ 0.11 0.10

– 0.48∗∗∗ 0.59∗∗∗ 0.08 0.15∗ 0.19∗ –0.22∗∗ 0.03 –0.05 0.09

M SD

2.86 0.57

3

2.94 0.72

4

– 0.48∗∗∗ – 0.17∗ 0.03 0.17∗ 0.08 0.24∗∗ 0.14 –0.18∗ –0.21∗∗ 0.14 0.01 0.02 –0.01 0.17∗ 0.15∗ 2.93 0.99

3.12 1.07

5

– 0.52∗∗∗ 0.52∗∗∗ –0.12 0.20∗∗ 0.03 0.16∗

6

7

8

– 0.72∗∗∗ – –0.20∗∗ –0.25∗∗ – 0.18∗ 0.14 0.10 0.02 0.03 0.19∗ –0.03 –0.02 0.07

1.84 0.55

1.63 0.67

1.86 0.68

3.96 0.53

9

10

– –0.01 – 0.10 –0.13 17.39 1.19

11

–

1.67 44.38 0.47 5.41

Note. Gender code: male = 1; female = 2. ∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.

Table 2 Goodness of Fit Indexes for the Tested Models Model 1 Model 2 Constrained Model 2

␹2

df

SB␹2

p

SB␹2

df

CFI

RMSEA

RMSEA I.C.

48.02 46.12 49.80

31 36 37

46.27 43.74 47.42

0.04 0.18 0.12

– – 4.10∗

– – 1

0.96 0.98 0.97

0.05 0.03 0.04

0.01–0.08 0.00–0.07 0.00–0.07

∗ p < 0.05.


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Fig. 1. Statistical model of the relations between mother’s parenting stress and adolescents’ emotional separation. All paths were significant at p < 0.05 except those represented with dotted lines.

Fig. 2. Statistical model of the relations among mother’s parenting stress, adolescents’ emotional separation, and self-orientation toward connectedness. All paths were significant at p < 0.05 except those represented with dotted lines.

stress was set to zero. We used the chi-square difference test (χ2 ) to assess the significance of this effect (Bentler & Bonett, 1980). The goodness of fit indexes are reported in Table 2. The χ2 difference test was significant at p < 0.05, showing that the overall fit of the constrained model was significantly worse than the unconstrained one. Hence, adolescent’s emotional separation significantly affects mother’s parenting stress over and above the contribution of adolescent’s connected self.

In general, the literature provides fairly consistent evidence that adolescence may be the most difficult time for parents and that increased tensions may foster high degrees of parental stress. As children progress through adolescence, the quality of the parent-child relationship may be threatened. The emphasis of this study is on the relation between mothers’ parenting stress and adolescents’ attempt to

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Discussion


emotionally distance themselves from parents. Two theoretical models were evaluated in order to show that the relation between these variables may be influenced by adolescents’ capabilities in regulating self-other boundaries, such as self-orientation towards connection. In particular, the focus was on maternal parenting stress because in Mediterranean families mothers are typically the main primary caregiver for children as well as for adolescents. Our first hypothesis was that adolescents’ emotional separation is associated with mothers’ parenting stress. Particularly, it was expected that mothers of adolescents who show high levels of emotional separation would tend to report high levels of parenting stress. The data followed exactly this prediction. Findings showed that the experience of adolescents’ emotional separation is associated with increased parental stress. Even if distancing is a normal and appropriate process during adolescence, the movement to extra familiar relationships and toward autonomy could be the cause of parents’ tension, stress, and anxiety. There are a number of reasons why it may be stressful being the mothers of adolescents who try to redefine their relationship with parents. Such children are not likely to agree with the rules and guidelines set down by parents. This may lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of conflict, associated with the expression of negative emotions and anxiety (Anderson, 2008). The likelihood that such interaction may be emotionally draining also raises the probability of higher maternal parenting stress. Furthermore, in Southern Italian culture maternal parenting stress may also reflects mothers’ jealousy and possessiveness because they feel that they are losing their child to others (Hock, Eberly, Bartle-Haring, Ellwanger, & Widaman, 2001). Although it is normative in European society for adolescents to start to affirm greater self-determination, Southern Italian mothers tend to perceive children’s struggle for emotional separation from parents as problematic, or indicative of a difficult child. Thus, results evidenced that adolescent’s need to increase psychological and physical distance from parents seem to influence maternal parenting stress (Flannery, Montemayor, Eberly, & Torquati, 1993). The evidence that parenting stress in adolescence is related to their children’s bids for autonomy and independence give more information about this process (Putnick et al., 2010; Small, Eastman, & Cornelius, 1988). In this context, it is not surprising that not all mothers reported high level of stress. This data may be presumably explained by the necessity to consider other individual

and contextual factors which may increase or decrease parenting stress, as suggested by the most prominent theoretical models of parenting stress (Abidin, 1992; Mash & Johnston, 1990). The second model we tested assumed that, when we take into account adolescents’ self-orientation towards connectedness, emotional separation and mothers’ parenting stress would be no longer associated. This hypothesis was partially but not completely confirmed. Firstly, our data revealed that self-orientation towards connectedness was negatively associated to both levels of adolescent emotional separation and mothers’ parenting stress. Adolescents, who tend to perceive themselves as intimately connected to parents, may show more hesitation in distancing parents and more attention towards parents’ feelings of anxiety and fear (Cross & Madson, 1997; Singelis, 1994). By understanding the emotions of mothers and fathers, adolescents could respond to parents’ reluctance to reduce their children’s dependence on them in an adequate manner. At the same time, it seems that the ability of adolescents to perceive mother’s perspective and concern about their need of autonomy could reduce parent’s distress. Moreover, a connected self can be considered a precursor to effective interpersonal competency and communication skills (Adams, Jones, Schvaneveldt, & Jenson, 1982). Thus, it is also presumable that openness and sympathy in communication developed by connected adolescents could foster parents to recognize the common conflicts of this period as a context in which they can have a meaningful exchange of views and not a merely struggle. The introduction of adolescent’s self-orientation towards connectedness seemed to produce a significant decrease of the direct effect of adolescent emotional separation on parenting stress. These results are in line with other studies (Ingoglia et al., 2011) which have outlined that higher levels of interdependency and concern for others, typical of connected self, generally promote adolescents’ ability to re-negotiate family relations without hurting or excluding parents. Consequently, mothers may perceive children’s attempt to redefine interpersonal distance from them as less distressful and anxious. Conger, Patterson, and Ge (1995) noted that parents who reported higher levels of involvement in their children lives are more likely to report lower level of stress related to parenting. Particularly, mothers who recognize that adolescents try to assert their individuality without excluding family may feel less distressed in response to difficulties and changes in the relationships with their children.


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Specifically, adolescents’ skills to share their needs, feelings and desires with mothers could facilitate the abilities of parents to respond to emotional separation changing needs in a supportive manner (Heller, Robinson, Henry, & Plunkett, 2006) and reduce their parenting stress. Globally, the results of the present study confirm that parenting stress is a dynamic and multifactorial process influenced by child and parents’ characteristics and contextual factors. Within the current study adolescent self-orientation towards connectedness seems to be a potential skill for better re-negotiating the parent-adolescent relationship in family’s transition to adolescence during which both parents and children are aimed at enabling a mutual emotional distance without irreparable tears. This leads us to reflect on the importance of the personal characteristics of the adolescent in influencing mothers’ parenting stress. When examining dynamics within the parent-child system it may be important to deeply investigate how individual differences of each family member could influence dyadic interactions and the whole system process develop¨ ment (Ostberg & Hagekull, 2000). Furthermore, future studies may use models showing transactional effects of personal characteristics of adolescents on parents’ affects and, in turn, the influence of parents’ response on adolescents’ abilities related to self-boundary regulation (Hock et al., 2001).

relationship. Secondly, gaining autonomy and distancing from parents is often the cause of parents’ stress, but our results suggest that several other variables may intervene in this relationship and may influence this effect. Identifying those child and parent characteristics or social contexts that are associated with the stress of parenting in high-risk environments would facilitate our understanding of how healthcare, social service, and education providers can prepare and support parents of adolescents to manage changes and challenges occurring during adolescence. It would be important for future research to uncover other mechanisms that allow parents to support their child’s autonomy and perceive this process as a normative one, without feelings of anxiety and distress.

References

Some shortcomings limit the interpretability of the present findings. Firstly, one of the most important limitations is the cross-sectional design of the study, which limits the causal inferences that can be drawn from the results. Future longitudinal research or follow-up studies could provide more conclusive findings in terms of cause and effect as well as teasing out the potential for long-term effects. Secondly, the study focused only on adolescents’ personal characteristics, as connected self however, other maternal characteristics might be important in the process of emotional separation. In spite of these limitations, this study has important implications for future empirical investigations. Firstly, the findings from this research suggest that although adolescents’ separation may be considered as a normal and healthy process, more knowledge is needed about its nature and consequences. It seems to be a multilayered process that may be more fully understood in the context of other aspects of the parent-adolescent

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Limitations

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Bio Sketches Francesca Liga, is Assistant Professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Department of Human and Social Sciences of the University of Messina (Italy). Her research areas focus on different aspects of developmental psychology, particularly regarding risk and protective factors in adolescence and the process of adolescents’ individuation. Sonia Ingoglia, is Assistant Professor in Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology at the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Palermo (Italy). Her research interests include the study of parent-child relations and the psychosocial adjustment in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Maria Grazia Lo Cricchio, is a PhD at the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Palermo (Italy). Her research interests include the study of psychological and social adaptation of adolescents and emerging adults in several settings. Alida Lo Coco, is Full Professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Palermo (Italy). Her research interests focus on different aspects of developmental psychology, especially regarding family functioning, peer relations and the psychosocial adjustment in adolescence and emerging adulthood.
