Kevin and Perry stereotypes ‘unfair to ordinary teenagers and their parents’

Media stereotypes of adolescents as obnoxious ‘Kevin and Perry’s, constantly throwing tantrums and fighting with their parents, are (as TV’s stroppiest teenager might put it) JUST SO UNFAIR!

Two new research reports supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggest the truth about relationships between adolescents and their parents is more often one of growing friendship and communication. Both studies of ‘ordinary’ families find that teenagers and parents mostly take a positive view of family life as a source of love, care, help and trust.

They also suggest that parents generally welcome a more open and equal relationship with their children, where influence can be achieved through discussion and negotiation. Both reports warn politicians that policies designed to tackle adolescent behaviour and other problems by invoking old-fashioned, parental control risk being resented by parents as well as young people themselves.

Pulling together, pulling apart
Researchers at Oxford Brookes University carried out in-depth interviews with young people aged 16 to 18 and fathers and mothers from a wide variety of class and ethnic backgrounds in South East England and the Midlands. They found that:

• The vast majority of parents and children described their family relationships in positive terms. Most parents and teenagers reported that relationships had improved as children moved through their teenage years, coming closer to a companionship between equals.
• Few parents identified with a view of the teenage years as particularly difficult. Young people also rejected the stereotype of teenagers becoming increasingly disconnected from their families.
• Teenagers valued their parents ‘being there’ as a crucial form of background support. Even when teenagers were in serious trouble and parents voiced distress and anger, they also described feelings of love and pride towards their children.
• Many of the young people placed a strong emphasis on personal responsibility and accountability for their actions, as well as their increasing independence.
• Although teenagers recognised their parents’ concern and care as an expression of love, there were tensions between trust and their desire for privacy. While parents were often confident that their children had not experimented with sex or drugs, some teenagers had deliberately kept their activities secret.

Jane Ribbens McCarthy, co-author of the report, said: “Although our study highlights the contradictions and complexity in modern family life, we were impressed by how little the young people or their parents conformed to the stereotypes that are so often paraded about the teenage years. The accounts we collected suggest that being a teenager, or the parent of one, is not necessarily as traumatic as we are often led to expect. Unlike Harry Enfield’s comic creation, ‘Kevin the teenager’, many young people really do appreciate what their parents have to offer.”

Closeness, authority and independence
Researchers from the University of Lancaster base their conclusions on a series of in-depth interviews with young people aged 11 to 16 and their parents from a wide range of social backgrounds, living in Rochdale. They found that:

• Most young people and parents described ‘the family’ very positively as a source of love, care, help and trust. Parents, especially, placed a strong value on spending time together.
• Another popular response, especially among girls, was that there was now ‘more talk with mum’. Boys were more likely to emphasise their increasing maturity through a feeling of diminishing parental control.
• Although described in very positive terms, the family was also depicted as a source of tensions, as teenagers developed their independence and parents saw ‘their family’ and parent-child relationships changing rapidly. The balance between more equal family relationships and parental control was a fine one.
• A quarter of teenagers would not say which family member they were closest to, but the rest were three times more likely to mention their mothers than their fathers.
• Fathers were typically described as the parent who ‘disciplined’ as compared with mothers who ‘talked’. However, many fathers were unhappy with their role being characterised that way and said they were striving to get away from traditional, authoritarian images.
• Young people wanted to be treated as ‘equals’ by their parents, but acknowledged reluctance to provide information about their lives that would encourage parental control. While parents stressed the value of open communication, there were also areas of their own lives that they chose not to disclose to their children.

Prof. Charlie Lewis, co-author of the study, said: “Complex issues must be taken into account in the current emphasis on parental responsibilities. While policy-makers focus on getting the best out of young people they must not overlook the impact of a wide range of policies on family relationships.

“Our study shows that the parents generally devote a lot of thought to the way they parent their teenage children and that they welcome relationships where their influence is increasingly the result of discussion and persuasion rather than laying down the law. Policy-makers should listen to parents and to draw on their experience of what promotes good relationships. They should also be aware that policies which stress parental authority and aim to reinforce roles that parents find difficult are likely to be resented.”