Abstract

CINTRON BOU, Francheska N.; WALTERS-PACHECO, Kattia Z.  and  SERRANO-GARCIA, Irma. Changes...: How do they influence on adolescents in reconstituted family?. Interam. j. psychol. [online]. 2008, vol.42, n.1, pp. 91-100. ISSN 0034-9690.

A high rate of divorce exists in Puerto Rico, however, many divorced people decide to remarry, establishing a reconstituted family. In this new relation the biological mother or father shares with their new relationship (mother and father in law) and also with their children of their first relation. They can come into this relationship with their children or they can have children of their own. Our objective was to study how adolescent children of mothers and fathers who are divorced adjust to a newly reconstituted family and the changes that come as a result of being a part of this family. We selected adolescents because this is an important stage in a child's development. Furthermore, in previous studies authors report that divorce affects adolescents more than other members of the family. We carried out semi-structured interviews with adults and adolescents of eight reconstituted families. The adolescents informed us of how negative and positive changes had affected them when the reconstituted family was formed. The adolescents reported that when forming part of a reconstituted family, they faced both negative and positive changes, such as change of school, distancing from relatives, spending time with relatives of their father or mother's new spouse, improvement in the communication processes and the economical status. We recommend research and future interventions directed at this population.

Keywords : Changes; Adolescents; Reconstituted family.

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