PARENTAL ATTITUDES IN THE PERCEPTION OF ADOLESCENTS AND COPING STRATEGIES IN A SOCIAL CONFLICT SITUATION

Abstract

Whilst strategies preferences develop over a person’s lifetime, due to its proximal presence the parenting context is primary significant relational context where conflict resolution skills might being learned. While disciplining and guiding the child, nurturing the child‘s psychological, physical, social, and economic well-being parent provides child with a platform to learn how to deal with conflicts (Jonyniene et al., 2015; Missotten et al., 2016). The purpose of the study was to search for the family etiology of the strategies (aggression, avoidance, submission, problem solving) for coping with a social conflict situation by adolescents, the source of which is inherent in parental upbringing attitudes. D. Borecka-Biernat’s Questionnaire on studying strategies for coping with a social conflict situation by adolescents (KSMK) and Parental Attitudes Scale (SPR) by M. Plopa were applied in the research. The empirical research was carried out in junior high schools in Wroclaw and neighbouring towns. It comprised 493 adolescents (269 girls and 224 boys) aged 13-15. In the light of the research conducted, it was found that the adolescents’ aggressive way of reacting to emotional tension resulting from a social conflict situation is shaped by inappropriate upbringing attitudes of parents towards an adolescent child. The research results within the scope of the acceptance-rejection and autonomy attitude perception reveal their lower intensification in parents of adolescents who use aggression strategy. On the other hand, it is also possible to observe a higher result concerning the inconsistent and an over demanding attitude of adolescents’ parents who use aggression as a strategy for coping with a social conflict situation. It can be assumed that due to the attitudes observed in the mother and father, the adolescents who use the strategy of avoidance, submission, and task-oriented for coping with a social conflict situation constitute a homogeneous group. The research also indicates that appropriate parental attitudes are conducive to shaping adolescent’s habits of reacting to social conflict situations in the form of an active way out of difficulties.