The Role of Communication in Meeting Adolescents\u27 Relational Expectations about the Parent-Child Relationship: Satisfying Teenagers

This study endeavored to extend earlier findings with elementary and college aged students. In earlier studies, conversation orientation was found to play a significant role in helping meet children\u27s parent-child relational expectations and in their satisfaction with family life. Adolescence, with its inherent struggles towards independence and adulthood, provided a more stringent test of these hypotheses. However, once again, conversation orientation was correlated with higher satisfaction with family life and less difference between expected and actual relational behaviors. Even teenagers find being able to talk with parents satisfying to some extent