THE IMPORTANCE OF PARENT/PEER RELATIONSHIPS IN POSITIVE ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT

Objective:

When the psychology literature had been examined, it was seen that the studies about adolescent social behaviors were mainly stressing anti-social behaviors rather than the prosocial ones. Most of the adolescents live this transmission period with feelings of happiness, comfort and confidence. A critical difference between the adolescents who had overcomed this transition period and who had experienced difficulties, was the quality of the relationships between adolescents and their par- ents/peers. In this review, various factors which contribute to positive adolescent development and the moderator/mediator relationships between these factors were discussed.

Method:

National and international data bases (ULAKBİM, ISI-WEB, SCIENCE DIRECT, EBSCOHOST, PSYCH-INFO) was reviewed about positive adolescent development.

Results:

The relationship between adolescents and their par- ents/peers has been handled as multi-dimensional and multi-directional. The study results which have been reviewed indicated that secure adolescent/peer relationships were critical for positive adolescent development.

Discussion:

Although in many of the reviewed studies the nature of relationships between adolescents and their parents/peers had been defined as reciprocal, they had usually been studied as unidirectional. Besides, parents had been supposed to behave similarly to each offspring and the developmental nature of parental process had been ignored. Furthermore, albeit the advantages of authoritative parenthood had been manifested, it has to be recognized that authoritarian parenthood could have been functional depending on cultural and contextual variables.