Dealing with Intergenerational Disagreements. Parental Authority in Swedish Families

Dealing with Intergenerational Disagreements. Parental Authority in Swedish Families

This thesis examined two key aspects of intergenerational disagreements. The first aspect dealt with parents preferences for discipline with respect to the national emphasis on child democracy. Parents of preschool children were interviewed so as to examine their responses to hypothetical situations typical of common child misbehavior and their use of three assertive disciplinary strategies (coercion, behavior modification, and verbal control) were examined.

In Study I, Swedish fathers preferences for discipline were compared with the preferences of fathers from the United States (U.S.). The results showed that fathers overall references to assertive discipline were on the same level in Swedish sample as they were in the U.S. sample. However, compared with the Americans, the Swedes mentioned using more verbal control and less behavior modification.

The aim of Study II, was to investigate how Swedish parents respond on initial and recurring episodes of child misconduct. Parents overall reports of assertive discipline revealed no significant shifts across first- and second-time child transgressions. In terms of individual strategies, however, fathers did exchange verbal control for coercion and behavior modification, but only when faced with serious situations. Although more research in needed to find out the possible effects of the national family policy in Sweden, a general conclusion is that Swedish parents seem to employ a restrictive, rather than punitive, approach to parent-child conflict. The second aspects of this thesis focused on the links between parental authority and adolescents psychosocial adjustment. The purpose was to address some of the limitations that developmental researches have noted in widespread typology models of parenting styles.

To separate adolescents voluntary co-operation with parental expectations from parents deliberate intentions to exert behavior control, in contrast with many previous investigations, Study III, measured the strategies of firm control and monitoring by asking parents for their responses to hypothetical situations involving potential conflict. The result indicated little support for a direct association between parental use of firm control and monitoring on the one side and adolescents psychosocial adjustment on the other.

Attempting to add to the understanding of the links between parenting and adolescent psychosocial adjustment, Study IV examined adolescents perceptions of how conflicts with their parents are usually resolved (i.e., conflict resolution schemas). The results revealed that adolescents with high and low levels of adjustment differed in their views of how conflicts with their parents were usually resolved. In particular, well-adjusted adolescents were more likely to see themselves as complying with parental expectancies on a voluntary basis. In conclusion, characteristics of the parent-adolescent relationship that promote adolescents conflict resolution expectancies seem to be more important to adolescents positive development than parental behavior control in itself.