Adolescents Perceived Family Environment and Parental Care & Support Services

Abstract

The study intended to capture the perceived family environment of 11^th and 12^th standard adolescent boys and girls of Kolkata city in addition to parental care and support services. A group of 370 adolescents (182 boys and 188 girls) from six schools were covered in the study and data were collected by a Semi-structured Questionnaire. The study was carried out in 2011. About two-thirds (72%) adolescent boys and three-fifths (60.6%) adolescent girls perceived family environment to be congenial. In this regard, statistically significant difference was found between adolescent boys and girls (p<.05). Less than half of the adolescents (45.4%), irrespective of gender, felt comfortable to share their personal problems with the parents while the remaining 65.3% shared the same with friends and peer group members. Majority of the adolescents (96.7% boys and 94.7% girls) reported receiving basic care from the parents. Adolescent girls (76.6%) received whatever they wished to have from the parents than their counterparts i.e., boys (56.6%), which was significant at 0.001 level of significance. At the same time, girls experienced more parental interference in their personal matters (26.0%) and more academic pressure (53.2%) than the boys (17% and 39.0% respectively) (p<.05; p<.001). Lack of understanding between intra-parental relationships (34.4%), different value system (24.8%) and financial crisis (20.8%) were the prime causes of disturbed family environment as perceived by the adolescents.