Abstract:

Family, which is expressed as the smallest social unit, has many functions including biological, economic, psychological and sociological functions. In this respect, one of the important factors that may affect the psycho-social development of the individual is the attitudes of the parents. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of parental attitudes on problem behaviours and psychological symptoms in adolescents. Data collection instruments were applied to 600 high school students, 238 (39.7%) female and 362 (60.3%) male. For the analysis of the data, multivariate analysis of variance was used. The results of this research showed that psychological symptoms and problem behaviours in adolescents differ significantly depending on their parents' attitudes. While adolescents growing in an unconcerned family environment tend to have more problem behaviours, participants with high psychological signs were found to have an authoritarian parental attitude. Democratic parental attitude is seen as a protective factor for both problem behaviours and psychological signs. In conclusion, findings from this study showed that parental attitudes are different from psychological signs and problem behaviours, and that democratic attitude is a protective factor. Obtained results were discussed within literature and some suggestions were made.

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