Parenting
Dreading the teenage crisis can cause it
Certain beliefs about adolescence may increase the risk that parents will encounter difficulties.
Devoid of inhibitions, or just full of the joys of life? Parents’ attitudes towards their teenagers can influence the likelihood of parental burnout. | Image: Priscilla du Preez/Unsplash
It’s difficult to talk about raising teenagers without immediately invoking an association with the word ‘crisis’. And yet, parents who dread this period are likely to encounter difficulties. “The literature of the first half of the 20th century was mainly concerned with problematic teenagers and led to the generalisation of the concept of crisis. The scientific knowledge accumulated since then has dismantled this myth, but stereotypes about adolescence nevertheless persist”, says Grégoire Zimmermann, a professor at the Institute of Psychology of the University of Lausanne. He and his team have just published the results of a project that explored the impact of the beliefs held by parents about adolescence on parenthood.
In this study, 146 couples parenting 14–15 year-olds at school in the canton of Vaud agreed to answer questionnaires about themselves with a range of items classically used to evaluate beliefs about adolescence. They also answered questions about overprotection and parental burnout, two aspects that are widely studied in contemporary parenting “where parents are bound by many constraints”, adds Zimmermann. Overprotection was found to be positively correlated with the risk of parental burnout. Another association was identified among negative beliefs about adolescence, overprotection and parental burnout. No causal link was established, but the study did show that mothers and fathers who fear their children’s adolescence the most are at greater risk of experiencing difficulties in parenting. “We hope to help parents adopt a more critical stance on the myth of the teenage crisis and to encourage them to change their perception of this period: when you are a parent it is essential to broaden your vision, also to notice everything that is going well.”
