Characteristics of parental communication as a factor of adolescents’ psychological well-being

Abstract

The paper presents results of a study on the relationship between psychological well-being of adolescents and features of their parents’ communication . The study involved 92 subjects: 46 adolescents aged 13—14 years, studying in one of the Moscow schools, and their mothers (46 females) . The adolescents’ psychological well-being was measured with the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale (scales VI, VII and VIII), the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale, and with the questionnaire by I .М . Markovskaya . Features of parental communication were assessed using the social skills questionnaire by V .F . Ryakhovskiy, the Self-Monitoring Scale by M . Snyder, and the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy by A . Mehrabian and N . Epstein . The study revealed a five-factor structure of psychological well-being of the adolescents and of their perception of child-parent relations . It showed a correlation between the level of parental emotional response and the adolescents' assessments of consent in their relationships with the parents . The adolescents’ satisfaction with communication with peers was also related to their parents’ social skills . Low and pronounced communicative skills of the parents are associated with high and average levels of adolescent satisfaction with peer communication respectively; normal communicative skills in the parents is associated with low satisfaction in the adolescents . The paper concludes with a discussion on the application of the obtained results in psychological counseling and psychological education of parents .