Short communicationAdolescent-parent conflict in the age of social media: Case reports from India
Introduction
In the present times, most children and adolescents are engaged in social media activities, which bring opportunities for social development as well as make them vulnerable to negative influences (O’Keeffe and Pearson, 2011). In traditional societies rapidly moving towards modernisation, such as India, there is a divide between the endorsement of these sites between adolescents and their parents. Further, handling of the adolescent-parent conflict is also different and influenced by the culture and values held by parents; and society in general (Kim and Markus, 1999). We present two cases of adolescent girls brought to us by their parents for “counselling”, to highlight the role of cultural factors in conflict generation and resolution.
Section snippets
Case 1
Ms A was an only child of her parents living in a small town of northern India. Her father worked as a pharmacist; mother a homemaker. She attended a co-educational private school. Ms A was close to both her parents, particularly to her father. Being a brilliant student, she was highly appreciated by parents, teachers and relatives. Her father was “very proud” of her, wanted her to study medicine. He had “complete faith” in her that she would never go wayward. Ms A also took pride in her
Discussion
During adolescence, there is often a significant increase in parent-adolescent conflict usually around issues that reflect the child’s growing assertion of her independence (Bandura, 1994). This conflict does not exist in isolation, but in the context of culture (Kim and Markus, 1999). Some believe that child-parent conflict is lower with lesser psychological and behavioural problems in collectivistic societies (Arnett, 1999) while others assert that it is more intense in traditional societies
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