Conductas parentales: apoyo a la autonomía y control psicológico en adolescentes de la Unidad Educativa Carlos Rigoberto Vintimilla de Cuenca en el periodo 2019 -2020

Abstract

This study was conducted to analyze, from the point of view offered by the SelfDetermination Theory (SDT), the parenting behaviors that allow and promote free will in teenagers by supporting their autonomy and allowing them the chance to take responsibility on any possible consequence of such activity by supporting and enhancing their autonomy. It also seeks to examine which are the practices that, on the contrary, don’t satisfy the basic emotional and psychological needs that a teenager has through the usage of psychological control. This is generally a topic that has been quite popular in the last few years which is the reason why our study describes the parenting behaviors that enhance autonomy and psychological control based on gender, family type, schooling level and the placement between siblings. Such study has been done under a quantitative approach with descriptive reach that is non-experimental. The Parental Autonomy Support Scale (P-PASS) was used as an instrument to evaluate the level of agreement and disagreement that the study group had in regards of their parent’s behaviors. For this research, the study group was composed by 100 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 years-old that are students in the Carlos Rigoberto Vintimilla high school in the city of Cuenca in Ecuador. The author’s results of data analysis found that parents manifested conducts which were supportive of their kid’s autonomy while they were growing up by being conscious and receptive to their children’s feelings. In terms of psychological control, it was found that the parenting practices overall encouraged school performance and used grounding as threat when objectives were not fulfilled as expected. In conclusion, teenagers generally perceived that their parents were more inclined to be supportive of their autonomy than to exert psychological control over them.