Meycauayan National High School 1

EL Camino Road, Camalig, Meycauayan, 3020 Bulacan

Group No. 6 Dr. Ariel P. Villar

Names of Members: Casamayor, Andrea D. Program Adviser
Salvador, Steven A.
Haganas, MA. Nicky Anne T.
Santiago, Rose Ann

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PARENTS AND TEENS

AMONG SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN
MEYCAUAYAN NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

Introduction

“Proper communication will always be a main ingredient for building family solidarity and
permanence.”

~M. Ashton (1976)

In the family context, communication can be defined as the ability of family

members to exchange their needs, feelings and desires with one another and to attend

the changing needs of a family member in a positive manner (Barnes & Olson, 1985;

Guilamo-Ramos, Jaccard, Dittus, & Bouris, 2006). Young individuals who are going

through adolescence in teen stage begin to explore with their own identities. Sometimes,

parents do not know how to communicate with their children because they are no longer

the young child that they knew (Vargas,2015). Also, teens have a lot of attitude regarding

to their parents when talking, their emotions kick when things don’t go their way, which

leads to conflict in relationships with their parents. Some of this conflict are about clothing,

music, and leisure time than about more serious matters such as religion and core values.

In its most serious form, this highly stressful environment is associated with several

negative outcomes, including juvenile delinquency, moving away from home, increased

school dropout rates, unplanned pregnancy, membership in religious cults, and drug

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abuse (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). Moreover, the fundamental of having a close family

relationship is to have a good communication between each member of the family.

In the recent years this issue had been expanded since teenagers and parents

nowadays are more focused on other things, such as their social life and their worked. In

a study of Moitra and Mukherjee (2010) determined that parents separated

communication has an effect to the close family relationship between them. Vargas

(2015) proposed factors that affects the communication between parents and their

children, those are the lack of communication knowledge, and the emotions and thoughts

that are in the teen’s minds but not what the parents see in their actions these factors

causes the conflict in the family relationship.

In a study conducted by, Oros (2012) they find that frequent parent-teen

communication and high comfort level with sensitive topics, regular prayer and use of

faith in making decisions, and lastly positive parental involvement in teens lives combined

with abstinence program participation correlates with teens’ positive, healthy sexual

behaviors and attitudes. Oros (2012) states that “Teens with positive, regular

communication with their parents will have healthier sexual behaviors and attitudes than

teens with negative and/or little communication with their parents” (p.209).They will be

less likely to fill lonely and suffocated in the internal would know they are encouraged,

supported and always have someone to count on at home (Marta,1997).

Laursen and Collins (2004) added that teens undergo stage of child into adulthood,

the prevalence and content of their interactions becomes different. Increasing

adolescents’ self-determination affects and change the meaningful conversation between

them. Thakkar and Sheth (2004) disagree with this idea they determined that the main

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cause of change in family communication are the parents that are unable to pace with

their children. Due to this change Thakkar and Sheth (2004) said that “Communication is

the only tool that can bridge the gap between parents and adolescents” (p.1).

With these areas reviewed, the researchers would like to bridge the gap on the

previous studies conducted about the concrete feasible solutions or actions that parents

can do for their children. The previous studies tend to focus more on the nature of the

parent-child communications. However, the results of the studies can already lead to

conceptualize actions of parents to their children regarding with conflicts.

The purpose of this study will be to explore the communications between the

parents and teens; also, this will document the voices to address this problem. This

research will focus on the goals of achieving in depth knowledge about the process of

parents and teens experiences when it comes in communicating with each other. By

utilizing qualitative research, the study explores experiential domains of the students to

give results that would help achieving better communication and a healthy family

relationship.

Statement of the Purpose

This study seeks to explore experiences in the field of communication between

parents and teens of grade twelve senior high school students at Meycauayan National

High School. It also aims to realize the following specific objectives:

1. To establish certain attitudes between parents and teens and its consequence

to their communication.

2. To established certain awareness about the problem between the family

communication and relationship.

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3. To establish on a qualitative and key elements, categories and themes that will

serve as the basis for communication between parents and their children.

Relevant Literature

The paper gives a closer view on the papers’ related literature, significant

theoretical underpinnings and a brief survey of related studies on communications

between parents and teens. These will provide the bases for the systematic analyses of

data that will form the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the study.

The research paper seeks to discover the nature of communication between

parents and teenagers. Guilamo (2006) points out the open parent-child communication

has been recognized as one of the protective factors among youths at risk of

psychological and behavioral problems. For example, many studies have established that

poor parent-adolescent communication is associated with increased risky sexual

behavior (Atienza, Walker, Campero, Camadrid-Figueroa, & Guttierez, 2009; Rogers, Ha,

Stormshak, & Dishion, 2015).

Research also indicates that parents who communicate with their children openly

and who involved them in discussions have children who are less involved in tabacco and

alcohol use (Goldberg, Loneey et al., 2015) These studies conclude that parents play an

important role in their children healthy development as they communicate their opinions

and disquiets about substance use and expectations for appropriate behavior directly to

them. Various studies also suggest that an improvement in the quality of communication

between a child and a parent reduce the risk of poor academic achievement and low self-

esteem among children (Hartos & Power, 2000). Some researchers also investigated the

association between the different aspects of parent-child relationship (such as social

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support and communication) and behavioral problems at school. These researchers

established that problems of communication within the family result in higher probability

of behavioral problems at school (Dermaray & Malecki, 2002; Esteyez, Musita & Herrero,

2005) and having positive parent-child communication are specifically essential for

adolescents’ healthy development and academic success (Hill, Witherspoon & Bartz,

2016)

Gender is an important variable that determines the pattern of communication

between the different dyads in the family. Existing studies indicate that girls perceive

relationship with mothers and fathers in a more positive manner than boys, which also

suggest more regular interactions among girls and their parents (De Goede, Branje, &

Meeus, 2009). Similarly, Luk et al. (2010) showed that the quality of paternal and maternal

communication functions as a protective factor against marijuana use and smoking

behavior among male adolescents.

In contrary, other researchers suggests children’s perceived difficulty of

expressing concerns or problems to parent is correlated with higher level of substance

use behavior among male and female adolescents (Ackard, Neumark-Sztainer, Story &

Perry, 2006). The above research underlines the significance of taking in to consideration

in examining parent-child communication and adolescents’ well-being.

To top it all, Hair et al. (2005) define that parent and children relationship are really

important factors in communication regardless when the child is infant. And

according to them, the one important factor also in communicating with their parents and

teens are the attitude and the behavior that the adapt in their social interaction like in their

health and their education. The study conducted by Thakkar and Sheth (2014) conclude

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that the main reason for communication between parents and adolescents being difficult

is both categories belong two different generations.

As a whole, the explanations given highlighted some of the gaps in the areas of

parent-teen communication with the many theories, models, and researchers conducted

at present. The study therefore would like to fill these gaps through analyzing what are

the emerging attitudes and process of parents and teens on each other to give more

clarity to the phenomena.

Methodology

This study utilizes a qualitative explanatory research design.

A. Participants

The subjects participating in this study are 5 high school students that will be used for

qualitative data. Purposive sampling is utilized as participants share the same line of

experiences needed to extract the information on the study’s topic.

B. Instrumentation

For qualitative data, semi-structured interview is used in this study to serve the

process.

C. Procedure

To arrive at the answers of the study, the procedure is divided into three phases.

Phase I

1. The researcher selects 5 respondents that qualify the characteristics that are

needed to extract the necessary data in the study. Proper permission is given to

the respondent to protect their identity anonymity.

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2. Interviews are scheduled in an iterative process according to the needed

information in order to reach saturation stage where no new data is emerging.

Phase II

1. The researcher starts the interview and records it through video recording

interviews are transcribed for coding.

Phase III

1. The data gathered is analyzed by the researcher by the way how qualitative study

should be treated based on the following: Key Elements: Identifying significant

items of information, Categories: Grouping similar items, Themes: Grouping similar

categories.

2. The researcher concludes and provides recommendations based on these

categorized qualitative themes.

Conceptual Framework

Experiences

Listening Speaking

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Figure 1- The Researcher’s Conceptual Framework

The student’s experiences provide the core of the study communication through

teen students is believed to be central to the development of “good communication” and

thus can potentially be seen to provide a sound framework for the development of

capable, solutions to motivate every family to have a close family relationship.

References

Ackard, D.M., Neumark-Sztainer, D., Story, M., & Perry,C. (2006). Parent-child
connectedness and behavioural and emotional health among adolescents.
American Journal of Perceived Medicine, 30, 59-66.10.1016/j-
ampere.2005.09.013. Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16414425/

Atienza, E.E., Walker, D.M., Campero, L., Lamadrid-Figueroa, H., &Gutierrez, J.P.
(2009). Parent-adolescent communication about sex in Morelos in Mexico: Does it
impact sexual behavior? The European Journal of Contraception & Reproductive
Healthcare, 14, 111-119.10.1080. Retrieved from
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Ashton, M. (1976). Family Communications. Retrieved from https://www.lds.org/general-

conference/1976/04/family-communications?

Barnes, H. L., & Olson, D. H. (1985). Parent–adolescent communication and the

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De Goede, I.H.A., Branje, S.J.T., & Meeus, W.H.J. (2009). Developmental changes
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