Parental attitudes’ perceptions and adolescents behaviour problems

Abstract

Introduction: The role of parents’ educational attitudes in adolescent’s development and behaviour has been broadly supported, emerging an interest for research in this field, not only as protector factor but also as risk factor for some deviance and mental health problems. The present investigation was designed to analyse the association between the parental attitudes’ perceptions and the expression of adolescent behaviour problems, aiming to contribute with subsidies to the improvement ofknowledge of professionals(health and schools) who work with adolescentsand their parents. Methodology: The parents’ attitudes quality was addressed considering the intensity of perceptions of affect and parental practices, while the behavioural problems include internalizing and externalizing behaviours, reported by the adolescents about their own actions and feelings. The data collection protocol is composed by a sociodemographic questionnaire (e.g., age, sex, place of residence, school failure, cohabitation and socioeconomic level), the Portuguese adaptation of the Youth Self-Report (YSR), and Fleming’s (1997) Adolescents’ Perceptions Inventory (IPA). The sample included 409 adolescents of both sexes, with ages ranging from 12 to 19 years old (M = 14.93), from schools and other youth institutions, in the Portalegre and Évora districts. Results: Results suggest, in general, that adolescents’ positive perceptions of parental attitudes have an inverse relation with the expression of internalizing and externalizing problems. Significant differences were found in function of age and sex. Conclusions: Implications are referred in terms of professionals’ intervention with adolescents and mainly with their parents.

Keywords

• atitudes parentais
• adolescência
• problemas de comportamento internalizado
• problemas de comportamento externalizado
• intervenção