Understanding how autonomy expectations are related to family functioning dimensions relevant to the development of self-esteem and depressive symptoms in adolescence

• In Event: Parenting and children´s socialization context in Chile: evidence on attachment, cognitive stimulation, and family functioning

Abstract

Background: Adolescence is a relevant instance for autonomous functioning. However, adolescents and their parents usually disagree about the adolescent’s expected autonomous behavior. In fact, adolescents holds earlier autonomy expectations than those of their parents (Bámaca-Colbert et al., 2012), which can lead to family conflicts (Holmbeck, 1998). Thus, adolescent/parent conflicts would be expected when adolescents wish to act more autonomously at earlier ages, and their parents seek to limit this behavior under the precept of protecting them from the risks associated to greater autonomy. Additionally, the presence of conflict is related to lower self-esteem and mental health problems in adolescents (Babore et al., 2016).
The aim of the study is to examine whether the expectations of autonomy held by both adolescents and their mothers are related to maternal practices of promoting autonomy and conflict at the mother-child level, and whether these dimensions of family functioning affect the self-esteem and depressive symptoms of adolescents. For this purpose, a longitudinal study was implemented with annual measurement during 3 years.
Methods: 407 mother/child dyads participated in this study; 79,12% were women with a mean age of 14.14 years (SD = 1.14) at the first measurement. Mother´s mean age was 43.35 years (SD = 6.30). In the first measurement, expectations of autonomy, maternal practices to promote autonomy and mother-child conflict were measured. adolescents’ self-esteem and depressive symptoms were measured in the following years. All were self-reports. Analysis were performed using structural equation modeling (SEM).
Results: As mothers hold later expectations for adolescent autonomy, there was more conflict at the mother-child dyad, and mothers reported fewer practices to promote autonomous functioning in their children. As mothers promoted less autonomous functioning in their adolescents and more conflict occurred, adolescents reported lower levels of self-esteem, and consequently, higher levels of depressive symptoms. In contrast, when it was the adolescents themselves who reported later expectations of autonomous behavior, there was no statistical relationship with mother/child conflict, and mothers reported more autonomous promoting practices in their children. Only maternal report of promotion of autonomy affected adolescent's self-esteem, which in turn, was related to adolescents' depressive symptoms.
Discussion: The results revealed a transactional nature of relationships between family members. Thus, when mothers had later expectations of their adolescents’ autonomous behavior, the mother-child conflict became a way of pushing and/or negotiating greater autonomy, which did not occur when it was the youth who reported later expectations. In addition, although mothers tend to be consistent between their expectations of autonomy and their practices, it stands out that when it is the adolescents who expected to have less autonomous behavior, mothers reported implementing more autonomy-promoting practices, in a way of pushing a more autonomous behavior in their children.

Authors

• Jessica Vidal, Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD)
  Non-Presenting Author

• J. Carola Perez Ewert, Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD)
  Presenting Author