Publication year
2013
Citation Title
Discrepancies in military middle-school adolescents’ and parents’ perceptions of family functioning, social support, anger frequency, and concerns.
Journal Name
Journal of Adolescence
Journal Volume
36
Issue Number
1
Page Numbers
9-Jan
DOI
10.1016/j.adolescence.2012.008.004
Summary
In order to test levels of agreement between adolescents and their parents, researchers surveyed adolescent–parent dyads from U.S. Army families about their perceptions of family functioning, social support, the adolescent’s frequency of anger, and the adolescent’s concerns. Parents and adolescents frequently disagreed; parents rated family functioning and social support items higher than their adolescents.
Key Findings
Parents rated measures of family functioning (e.g., “When we argue, my family listens to ‘both sides of the story’” and “My family pulls together when things are stressful”) significantly higher than their adolescents.
Parents rated measures of social support (e.g., “I have others who will listen when I need to talk about my problems” and “When I am lonely, there are several people I can talk to”) significantly higher than their adolescents.
Parents estimated a lower frequency of their adolescents’ anger (average: 11–15 times per week) than the adolescents themselves (average: 21–25 times per week).
Parents and adolescents agreed on the number of concerns they listed. The top 5 concerns were: (1) dealing with change/new situations, (2) difficulty controlling anger, (3) receiving one or more failing grades, (4) loss of a loved one, and (5) test anxiety.
Implications for Program Leaders
Offer support groups targeted at adolescents within a military family context, specifically for social support and expressing emotions
Create workshops for military family during changes (i.e., relocations, deployments) that provide tools for positive adjustment and family functioning
Provide information on normative versus problematic youth's responses to common military-related experiences (e.g., PCS) and how parents can best support youth during stressful times
Implications for Policy Makers
Promote the ongoing provision of military family programs
Encourage increased access to and availability of support services for military adolescents and families
Continue to provide support for programs that work to increase family readiness
Methods
Parents and students were recruited at a middle school attached to a large U.S. Army installation. Participants completed a one-time questionnaire designed to assess perceptions of family functioning, social support, frequency of adolescents’ anger, and adolescents’ concerns.
Parents completed questionnaires during parent-teacher conferences while adolescents completed the questionnaires during the school day.
Statistical analyses were used to explore potential relationships among family functioning, social support, frequency of adolescents’ anger, and adolescents’ concerns.
Participants
Ninety one parent–adolescent dyads from Active Duty Army families participated in the study.
The average age of adolescents was 12.45 years (age range was 11–14.8 years) and no data on adolescents' gender was reported.
In this sample, parents were mostly mothers (73%) and no data on parents' ages were reported.
Limitations
This study focused on a small sample of Active Duty Army personnel and their adolescent dependents who completed a one-time questionnaire. Hence, the findings may not generalize to adolescents of Service members in other branches of the military.
Participants may differ from non-participants in a way that was not measured, but affected the outcome variables (e.g., parents may be more connected with their adolescents than parents who elected not to participate).
The study was cross-sectional, which means no conclusions about causation can be determined based on the findings.
Avenues for Future Research
Replicate this study in a larger, more demographically diverse sample
Investigate the factors that explain discrepancies between parent–adolescent perceptions including the impact of parental deployment
Design longitudinal studies that follow the relationship between family functioning, social support, and anger from middle childhood to early adulthood
Focus
Army
Target Population
Population Focus
Military Branch
Military Component
Abstract
Previous literature suggests that adolescents' and parents' perceptions of family functioning are typically quite disparate and that perceptual discrepancies increase when a family is under stress. During the years of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan adolescents in military families have faced uniquely stressful circumstances which may exacerbate difficulties commonly experienced during adolescence. For this study 91 middle-school adolescent–parent dyads from U.S. Army families were surveyed about their perceptions of family functioning, social support, the adolescent's frequency of anger, and the adolescent's concerns. Findings indicated significant differences in parents' and adolescents' matched ratings for all variables except adolescent concerns. Adolescent–parent perceptual discrepancies were greatest for families who had never experienced deployment and during or following the first deployment. The results of this study may be useful to those supporting military families as they develop strategies to help family members understand the others' perceptions and learn to communicate and solve problems despite the differences.
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