The needs of adolescents in parent-child relationship, a qualitative study

Adolescence is one of the critical stages of life. The present study aims to investigate the needs of adolescents aged 11-14 years in their relationship with their parents. This research was qualitative and with a hermeneutic phenomenology approach. The data collection was performed by interviewing adolescents 11 – 14 aged was carried out until reaching saturation. 24 adolescents were selected by purposive sampling method and interviews were continued until saturation was reached. After that, the recordings of interviews were transcribed and analyzed by thematic analysis method. The analyses revealed 6 themes including warm and encouraging atmosphere, freedoms accompanied by supervision, unconditional acceptance, receiving attention to one’s emotions, and secure and accessible relationship with parents. Each theme consisted of 4 to 6 subthemes. The findings of this study showed that from the perspective of adolescents, having a family relationship with security, intimacy, happiness, acceptance, and freedom is one of the most important needs in this period of life, and recognition of these needs by parents can help adolescents to have a healthy transition through this stage of life with satisfaction and mental health. It also helps psychologists and counselors and other individuals and organizations involved with adolescents and their problems to design intervention protocols to improve the parent-adolescent relationship.