Young People in Focus

SECTION 3

3.7 Parents’ and Young Peoples’ Perceptions
of Change

Two key objectives of the IYPP Project were to improve parenting skills and family relationships. Parents and young people were asked questions to find out their perceptions about how things had changed in these dimensions over the course of their intervention. The five dimensions were:

• Communicationⁱ between the parents and young people 
• Parents’ supervision and monitoringⁱⁱ of young people’s movements and activities
• Handling conflictⁱⁱⁱ between parents and young people
• Warmth and hostility^iv between parents and young people
• Parents’ confidence and sense of coping^v with their parenting tasks.

Young people were also asked to report on the numbers of times they had been involved in offending, anti-social behaviour and truancy.

Parent’s and young peoples’ perceptions of change in these areas by the end of their intervention were explored using ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires and individual interviews. We describe below what young people and parents said about each of these areas. However, it is worth remembering here that these findings are relevant to this group of parents and young people only and we do not know what in particular influenced any changes whether positive or negative.

3.7.1 Communication

Parents and young people were asked (in their separate questionnaires) how much they talked to one another, whether they listened to the other’s point of view and how much they thought that the other understood how they were feeling.

Sixty-seven parents responded to this section in both ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires and there was a statistically significant improvement for these parents in their perception of the degree of communication with their child/young person^vi. For example, parents who felt they now ‘talked a lot’ with their child increased from 45 to 56 parents. Although this area of communication changed significantly, it’s also interesting to note here the high starting point where a majority of parents already felt they talked a lot with their child at the beginning of the intervention.

However, the 59 young people who responded to these questions in relation to their mother showed a minimal deterioration in communication, although boys showed a greater deterioration in communication with their mothers than girls did – the boys’ deterioration was statistically significant^vii. The 30 young people who responded in relation to their father showed a slight deterioration in communication, although communication with father was rated higher than communication with mother at the beginning of the intervention and was still higher by the end.

Of the 10 parents (all mothers) and 8 young people who were individually interviewedmost thought that communication had improved:

I’ll listen where before I’d say I wouldn’t listen.  You know, I’d just jump in at him sort of thing.  But now I’m more relaxed and I don’t shout at him as much. (Kerrian)

Me and my mum, we talked more, and if there’s a problem we won’t argue about it. Well we will argue but we won’t argue as much. It has helped a lot. (Kylie)

These young people also said that they were now more likely to talk through any problems with their mother whereas previously this would have been communicated to peers. However, some of the young people interviewed felt little had changed and still found it hard to communicate with their parents.

3.7.2 Conflict

Parents and young people were asked how often they found themselves in situations of verbal and physical conflict, and how they had tended to respond to these situations in the recent past and after the intervention.

Sixty-nine parents responded to these questions and overall there was some improvement. However, most areas of conflict with their child had stayed the same or had deteriorated. The one exception to this was that having had an argument there was a substantial decrease in parents who ‘sulked or refused to talk about it’ by the end of the intervention and the degree of positive change here outweighed the other areas to create an overall modest improvement. This was the only dimension of parenting in which there was not a statistically significant change^viii.

For 57 young people who responded to these questions, there was less conflict with mothers by the end of the intervention, particularly for girls where the decrease in conflict was statistically significant^ix. Conflict with father stayed much the same for the 28 young people who responded to these questions in relation to their fathers.

Me and my mum and my sister can actually talk about things now…I understand what they’re saying. And I realise, basically if I’ve done something wrong and my mum shouts at me, I realise why she’s doing it… I didn’t really see that before so I’d just shout back! (Sam)

3.7.3 Supervision and monitoring

Parents were asked how often, when their child was absent from home, they knew where their child was, who the child was with and what he/she was doing. They were also asked if they knew at what time their child would return home. 

Sixty-nine parents responded to these questions in the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires and they were statistically significantly more likely to believe that they were able to supervise their child/young person at the end of the intervention than they had been at the beginning^x. However, it is important to note that only 5 parents reported that they knew what their child was doing ‘most of the time’ at the beginning of the intervention and this only increased to 7 parents by the end of the intervention.

3.7.4 Warmth and hostility

Parents and young people were asked how often parents praised the young person or said she/he had done something well, or criticised or said she/he was bad. They were also asked how often parents lost their temper with their child and how often they told their child they loved or cared for him/her.   

Overall for the 69 parents who responded to this section of the questionnaires their perception of the warmth between themselves and their children had improved statistically significantly^xi. For example, the numbers of parents who reported losing their temper ‘very often’ or ‘fairly often’ with their child decreased from 25 parents to 6 parents.

For the 59 young people who responded to these questions in relation to their mother there was some improvement in warmth, more so for boys where there was a statistically significant improvement^xii. Whereas warmth with father stayed the same for the 29 young people who responded. Overall, therefore there was little change for young people in relation to their view of their parents’ warmth and hostility towards them.

3.7.5 Confidence and sense of coping

Parents were asked in the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires how well they thought they had been coping with their child over the past month, taking everything into account.

Sixty-six parents answered this question and the proportion of parents who felt they had coped well in the last month rose from 28 parents at the beginning of the intervention to 51 parents at the end of the intervention. This improvement in sense of coping well was statistically significant^xiii.

I used to be sort of constantly on the edge, I used to feel like a little time bomb ticking all the time ... where now I feel a lot calmer in myself. (Ellen)

However, 3 parents felt they were coping ‘very badly’ at the end of the programme.

3.7.6 Young peoples’ offending, anti-social behaviour and truancy

Young people were asked to record both in their ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires how many times in the previous 4 weeks they had done a list of 13 things including committing particular offences, anti-social behaviour and truanting from school. Between 41 and 50 young people responded to each of the 13 items.

Overall, there was a slight reduction in the average number of young people in this group involved in the offending, anti-social behaviour and truancy listed in the questionnaires. However, there were a few more young people involved in particular offences by the end of the programme than there had been at the beginning. 

There was also a slight reduction overall in relation to the average number of times young people in this group got into trouble in these ways. However, again there were a few items where the average number of times particular offences were committed increased.

Three of the 8 young people interviewed individually had committed offences before beginning their intervention.  One young person reported that he had re-offended since completing his involvement with the project. Moreover this person didn’t believe that the programme had tackled his offending behaviour. Another young person reported that she hadn’t reoffended since completing the intervention. One young person commented that although he hadn’t yet reoffended he did think he may yet do so because that’s what young people of his age did.

3.7.7 Different experiences for different groups of young people

Although a majority of young people who completed ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires expected (44 out of 61) and found (45 out of 61) the project ‘very helpful’ or ‘fairly helpful’, this does not appear to be reflected in significant changes for them, as described above. To unpick this a little further the Policy Research Bureau looked at whether there were differences in the experiences of different groups of young people where these were substantial enough to compare:

1. Those who had different levels of difficulty as reported by their parents
2. Those who lived with two parents and those who lived with one
3. Boys and girls
4. Age of the young person

a. Those who had different levels of difficulty as reported by their parents

Parents were asked to report on young peoples’ difficulties with their emotions, concentration, behaviour or ability to get on with others.  Where difficulties were identified these were split into three categories minor difficulties, definite difficulties and severe difficulties. Among these groups of young people, it was found that for young people with definite difficulties (as reported by their parents) conflict with their mother significantly^xiv declined after the intervention. Whereas, no significant change in any of the constructs was found for young people with severe difficulties.

b. Those who lived with two parents and those who lived with one

An analysis was undertaken based on whom the young person mainly resided with at the time of the IYPP Project. This was usually with either both their mother and father or with a lone parent.  Young people overall felt there was some improvement in warmth from mothers. However, warmth from mother improved significantly^xv for young people who lived with both their mother and father or with one of their parents and that parents’ partner. This is not to say that warmth with father did not change, but rather warmth with father was already significantly^xvi better at the start of the intervention than warmth with mother and there was not much change. Also for those young people living with their mother alone, conflict with their mother had declined significantly^xvii by the time the ‘After’ questionnaires were completed.

c. Boys and girls

For boys warmth with mother appeared to significantly improve, whereas for girls’ conflict with mother appeared to have significantly reduced. 

d. Age of the young person

The age of the young people did not relate to differences experienced in perceptions of change.

In summary then it would appear that there were some different experiences that linked to particular groups of young people in relation to their characteristics. Young people that had definite difficulties with their emotions, concentration, behaviour or ability to get on with others (as reported by their parents), as well as young people who lived as part of a lone parent family and girls in general, all experienced greater reductions in conflict with their mother than other young people. In addition, young people who lived with either two parents or their mother/father and partner and boys in general, all experienced a greater improvement in warmth with their mother than young people overall.

3.7.8 Summary of parents’ and young peoples’ perceptions of change

Between 66 and 69 parents and between 57 and 59 young people responded to these sections of the questionnaires, as detailed above, except that between 41 and 50 young people responded to questions on changes in their offending, anti-social behaviour and truancy. These parents and young people stated that:

• Parents’ communication with their child/young person had improved
• There was a slight deterioration for young people in communication with their parents
• Parents’ conflict with their child had slightly improved
• For young people there was slightly less conflict with mothers, but it had stayed the same with fathers
• Parents’ warmth towards their child/young person had improved
• For young people there was little change in warmth overall although some improvement in warmth from mothers
• The average numbers of young people who had been involved in offending, anti-social behaviour and truancy had slightly reduced
• The average numbers of times young people got in trouble in these ways had slightly reduced
• Parents were more likely to feel they were able to supervise their child/young person
• Parents’ overall sense of coping with their child had improved
• Overall the results suggest that there was no statistically significant change in young peoples’ relationship with their parents, nor in any of the specific dimensions (conflict, communication and warmth)^xviii.

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