© 2007 European Society for Medical Oncology
editorials |
Parental cancer and its effects on adolescents and their families
Department of Individual and Family Studies, University of Delaware, 110 Alison Hall, Newark, DE 19716-3301, USA
E-mail: ohanness@udel.edu
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
During adolescence, important fundamental changes take place in the family. The level of family conflict typically increases as adolescents negotiate with their parents for increasing amounts of autonomy. The development of adolescent autonomy is an important developmental task and it requires both subtle and not so subtle distancing between adolescents and their parents. In line with these changes, several studies have shown that adolescents tend to view the family more negatively than do their parents [1–4]. Today, adolescent–parent discrepancies in perceptions of the family typically are viewed as normative as the adolescent negotiates increases in autonomy and moves toward adulthood. A number of investigations, however, have shown that discrepancies in adolescent–parent perceptions of the family also may be related to poorer adolescent psychological
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