The lived experience of traumatic cognitive factors in parent-adolescent relationships

Adolescence is a stage of the individual's life during which a young person experiences comprehensive changes and transformations in various aspects such as physical, cognitive, moral, behavioral, and more. One of the most influential factors in successfully navigating this period and acquiring desirable traits as a result of these changes is the family. Hence, it is essential to identify cognitive factors that can be detrimental to parent-adolescent relationships in order to provide strategies for improving relationships between adolescents and parents.

The aim of the current study was to investigate the lived experience of traumatic cognitive factors in parent-adolescent relationships.

The present research employed a mixed-methods exploratory approach. Purposeful sampling using expert network technique was utilized for qualitative data collection, involving 20 participants in interviews. The statistical population for the quantitative segment of the study encompassed all high school students in Shiraz. A total of 332 participants were selected through simple random sampling. The research tools included interviews and a researcher-developed questionnaire for both qualitative and quantitative segments. Qualitative data analysis involved open, selective, and theoretical coding, while quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. In the quantitative part of the research, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were conducted using Smart PLS 3 software.

The final results of the study, based on the interviews, demonstrated that traumatic cognitive factors in parent-adolescent relationships include: 1) Generational differences; parental perfectionism; parental unawareness; lack of parental understanding; divergent value systems; excessive mutual expectations; and perceptual distance between parents and adolescents. The results of the structural equation modeling indicated that trauma has a significant negative and inverse impact on the parent-adolescent relationship. However, the other factors did not show significant effects.

Based on the findings of this study, it can be said that identifying each of the traumatic factors in parent-adolescent relationships leads to the recognition of the underlying issues between parents and adolescents, thereby facilitating improvement.