THE EFFECT OF PERCEIVED PARENTAL ATTITUDE ON SELF-ESTEEM DURING ADOLESCENSE
Adolescence, which serves as a bridge between childhood and adulthood, is one of the most important stages in personal development (Aydın, 2019). The World Health Organization defines the 10-18 age group as adolescents (as cited in Erbil et al., 2006). This age range can be quite stressful and stormy for individuals. Because this period contains some changes such as biological, psychological and physical changes intensively (Özmen, 2007). These changes also accompany the process in which adolescents turn to themselves and pay attention to what others think about them (Çiftçi, 2018). This passive attitude especially affects self-esteem. Because self-esteem is related to the self-efficacy of the person, and in this competence, it reaches a positive or negative result on the assessment that the individual perceives in response to the attitudes of the environment (Aydın, 2019).
The way of communication, which supports the child throughout his development and plays an active role throughout his or her life, is a great importance, especially during adolescence. (Erbil vd., 2006). Because adolescents interpret the attitudes and behaviors of their families towards them in their own world. Although families think that they treat each of their children equally, the environment and family approach shared between siblings are not the same. Therefore, the parental attitudes can be perceived by the adolescent as oppressive, tolerant, understanding or aggressive (Aydın, 2019; see also, Yavuzer, 1979). We can see many family attitudes that are defined when we look at the literature. However, in this article, I will explain how the self-esteem of the adolescent is affected by the attitudes of democratic and authoritarian families we encounter the most.
Authoritarian attitude is an attitude that requires constant supervision, restricts and has little tolerance. Families who adopt this attitude generally are unable to communicate well with their children, make decisions instead of children, and do not fully understand their children's wishes and needs. In these families that use the punishment system to ensure discipline, the reward is usually to exhibit appreciation or love. In this whole system, the child cannot discover himself/herself (Alisinanoğlu, 2003; Özmen, 2007; Güngör, 2012). Democratic family attitude, on the other hand, is aware of the needs of children and also maintains the control insightfully. There are also rules and sanctions in the democratic family attitude. However, unlike the authoritarian family attitude, this attitude respects the child's wishes and opinions are respected, and regards the child as an individual. These attitudes give the child the opportunity to know himself and develop his or her self-esteem (Başal et al., 2014; Özmen, 2007).
Considering the studies and literature, these two family attitudes affect adolescents' self-esteem differently. Children who grow up with a democratic family attitude are more confident, compatible, and can communicate with the environment, while children who grow up in an authoritarian style can be aggressive, shy, and insecure. The reason for this is that in the democratic family attitude, the behaviors he/she exhibits are their own preference, and as a result, he/she understands his/her mistake better with instructive punishments. However, in authoritarian families, they put pressure on the child, and the child is not allowed to explain himself. This causes the child to get approval from the environment, to be afraid of making mistakes and not to develop his/her self-esteem sufficiently during adolescence (Aydın, 2019; Dilek & Aksoy, 2013). Studies examining family attitudes and self-esteem in adolescents have adopted this and have reached a conclusion in this respect (Aydın, 2019; Dilek & Aksoy, 2013).
As a result, if we approach self-esteem from the point of view of Lewin, life is a scene, and self-esteem is the applause that is desired to hear (quoted by Dilek and Aksoy, 2013). Adolescents, on the other hand, expect this applause from their families first and exhibit behavior and attitude accordingly. For this reason, mutual communication between adolescents and parents is very important. As a matter of fact, many studies show that adolescents who perceive a democratic family attitude exhibit positive self-esteem, while adolescents with an authoritarian family attitude exhibit negative self-esteem.
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