Abstract

PAULA, Liliam Pacheco Pinto de  and  STENGEL, Márcia. The experience of being fathers and mothers of adolescent today. Rev. abordagem gestalt. [online]. 2022, vol.28, n.1, pp.01-13. ISSN 1809-6867.  https://doi.org/10.18065/2022v28n1.1.

The general objective of this study was to understand the meanings of being a father/mother of an adolescent nowadays, based on Gestalt-therapy. This was a qualitative phenomenological study, which used an open individual interview with triggering questions. Three mothers and three fathers collaborated. The meaning units revealed were: fulfillment, insecurity, and challenge; acceptance of the child's way of being; responsibility for the child's safety in the world; being a friend and maintaining authority. It was found that parents establish a more horizontal than vertical relationship with their children. The fluid contact allows children to be more rooted in the family and more tenacious in opening up to the world and to others. The greater openness of parents and the quality of the affective relationship they seek to establish with their children seems to contribute to the development of more authentic contacts, with the possibility of more intense and lasting affective exchanges, with the construction of flexible boundaries that allow the assimilation of what is nurturing and the rejection of what is toxic and thus a healthier encounter between parents and adolescent children.

Keywords : Adolescence; Parenting; Phenomenology; Gestalt-Therapy.

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