Parent-Adolescent Interaction and Outcomes

This study aimed to investigate perception of parent-adolescent interaction, outcomes and also to find out gender differences (girl Vs mother, girls Vs father and boy Vs mother, boy Vs father). Data were collected from 1719 adolescents (692 girls, 1027 boys) studying in 7th (329 boys, 263 girls), 9th (320 boys, 244 girls) and 11th (378 boys, 185 girls) classes of some selected schools of Delhi. Age ranged from 11-17 years. Self constructed questionnaire was used to find out parent-adolescent interaction and outcomes, categorized into 5 dimensions namely; Quality of interaction, Parental support, Kind of Treatment, Punishment and Reward and Criticism/Complaints between adolescents and their parents. Students were asked to mark their responses separately for father and mother, as per instructions provided for each section. Means and standard deviations were calculated. ‘t’ test was used to find out significance of difference between means. The result revealed that there are significant differences in parental interaction and outcomes with adolescent of different age groups and sex.

Transformation from childhood to adolescence is believed to be disturbing, felt not only by adolescents but by their parents as well. Some studies indicate that it is not as stressful as was previously believed (Montemayor, 1983) and suggest that most adolescents enjoy their relationships with parents. Most of adolescents identify parents as significant persons in their lives, and feel more satisfied when parents are present. Though during adolescence there is decline in the desire for companionship ( Buhrmester and Furman 1987) and increase in conflict and experiencing a decrease in closeness with them (steinberg 1989), in addition to having fewer positive things to say to them. Parent adolescent interaction has a strong relationship to the wellbeing of the adolescents (Greenberg, Siegel, & Leitch, 1983), and the lack of closeness with parents (Kandel & Davies, 1982;Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979) or a lower level of parental influence (Chrispin, 1998) correlates with a higher degree of behavioral problems in adolescents.
Parenting role differ by gender, and so do the relationship between mothers and daughters, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, and fathers and sons. Studies also suggest that there are qualitative differences in parental involvement (Videon, 2005). Mothers are more typically primary caregivers and tend to spend more time taking care of their children and provide emotional care, whereas fathers give instrumental care and more likely to participate in leisure activities with their children (Paikoff & Brooks-Gunn 1991) .
Studies generally focus on one parent or both parents without differentiating the gender of the parent but there are indications that parents tend to provide more companionship and general support to the same-sex child (Barber& Thomas 1986). This fact motivated the researcher to take up this study. The purposes of this study are twofold-first to investigate parent-adolescent interaction and secondly to investigate whether or not gender and age acts as a moderator in the adolescent interaction with parents. Against this backdrop this study has been planned with the following objectives- • To study the differences in parent-adolescents interaction and outcomes in context of class-wise and gender-wise • To study the gender differences (girl Vs mother, girls Vs father and boy Vs mother, boy Vs father) in interaction and outcomes

METHODOLOGY
Data were collected from 18 (8 governments and 10 private) schools of New Delhi, selected randomly. Self constructed questionnaire was distributed to students studying in 7 th , 9 th and 11 th classes of these selected schools. Incomplete forms were screened out. Final sample comprised of 1719 adolescents (692 girls, 1027 boys) studying in 7 th (592), 9 th (564) and 11 th (563) classes to select the group of early, middle and late adolescents.

Tool and methods
In order to study the adolescent's perception of their interaction with parents and outcomes, a self constructed questionnaire was used. Various items to study the interaction and outcomes were categorized into 5 dimensions namely Quality of Interaction, Parental Support, Kind of Treatment, Punishment and Reward and Criticism/Complaints. Instructions were given separately for each section. Statements ranged from Yes/No to multiple choice types. Students were asked to mark their responses separately for mother and father in the given boxes. Means, Standard Deviation and't' test (to test the significance of difference between means) were calculated separately for different domains for age-wise and gender-wise differences. Table shows that as far as quality of interaction is concerned there is significant difference in quality of interaction among boys and girls. Quality of interaction improves significantly by age among girls and highest in 11 th class whereas it shows wave like trend for boys. There is significant decline in quality of interaction by 9 th as compared to 7 th class and then shows significant improvement by 11 th class. In 7 th class boys have better interaction than girls which improves in favor of girls by 9 th class and girls show better interaction with their parents. Quality of interaction improves further for both boys and girls by late adolescence (11 th class). Quality of interaction is more or less same for boys and girls studying in 11 th class.

Table showing Mean SD and't' values of various domains of parent-adolescent interaction and outcomes (Class-wise and Gender-wise)
Parental support also improves by age among both boys and girls and significantly better by late adolescents (11 th class). There are no gender differences for parental support as for all the three stages of development parental support is more or less same for boys and girls.
Kinds of treatment as well as Punishment and reward domains also show wave like development kind of treatment as well as punishment and reward decrease significantly from early to middle adolescence (as there is significant difference in two domains from 7 th to 9 th class) . There is significant improvement in two dimensions by the late adolescence. Kind of treatment and reward are highest among late adolescents. There are also gender-wise differences. For all the three stages boys get better treatment as compared to girls. Punishment and reward were different for boys and girls in all stages of adolescence.
/complaints were significant in 7 th and 9 th class. It means both boys' and girls' .Criticism /complaints are different in pre , middle and late adolescent age (decrease in 9 th class than 7 th and further increase by 11 th class) .although showing wave like trend for different stages of there is significant gender difference in pre and middle adolescence. Girls reported more complaints and criticism than boys during early and middle adolescence but during late adolescence complaints and criticism are more or less same in both the sexes.