The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore the dynamics of the
parenting experience as it relates to parenting adolescents, with the specific aim of exploring
and achieving an understanding of the particular experiences that parents of adolescents and
their adolescent children describe; and of discovering how they have experienced a
collaborative or participatory approach to the parenting process.
The over-arching theoretical orientation is social constructionism. From a social
constructionist point of view meaning making and knowledge is contextual, applying only to
the specific context from which it is derived. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA)
was the selected methodology, involving careful recording of participantsâ expressions in
semi-structured interviews followed by thematic coding and analysis.
Three groups of parents and three groups of adolescents, from three culturally and
economically diverse communities in the Western Cape, South Africa, participated in focus
groups and shared their experiences of the parenting process. Through the explication of the
data five main themes emerged as being important to the participants:
Connection and communication was seen as being of first importance, reflecting
perceptions of effective parent-adolescent relationships as close and emotionally connected.
Parental control and protection presented as an equally important and related area of
concern, reflecting the belief that effective communication would enable a more
collaborative, negotiated approach to issues of safety, limit setting, expectations and
consequences. Some of the adolescent participants expressed a strong need for parents to
respect their individuality and independence, which in their view was related to the
development of trust as a two-way process. The fourth key theme was the need for
information and services. The ability to access reliable information and services empowers
both parents and adolescents to make effective and informed decisions. Finally, the role of
fathers featured strongly in discussions with all groups and was identified as playing a
significant role in parent-adolescent relationship satisfaction.
This study illustrates a process by which families can be enabled to arrive at a deeper
understanding of the needs and challenges specific to each family; and to collaborate in
generating ideas that could contribute to a meaningful parenting plan or parenting practices
that work for that particular family.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-07172013-162015 |
| Date | 17 July 2013 |
| Creators | Dunkley, Jennifer |
| Contributors | Dr L Nel |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-07172013-162015/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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