Abstract
M.A.
From both a practical and a theoretical viewpoint, it seemed necessary to
formulate a parent education programme that highlighted in terms of content
both the needs and developmental tasks of the adolescent. In order to
confirm the content on the process level of this programme, it was
important for the adolescent to be involved in the presentation of the
programme. The purpose of the research was therefore to formulate and evaluate a
parent education programme with the adolescent as partner. The assumption
was made that the programme would be more effective, should the adolescent
be involved in the presentation thereof, than should the mother be the sole
participant. The programme that was formulated for this research is an integration of
several approaches to parent education. Relevant information with regard
to the developmental stages of both parent and adolescent was included in
the programme. Specific importance was however placed on the parent-adolescent
relationship and on communication skills •.
A single subject research design was used to evaluate the programme. Two
middle aged mothers and their two adolescent daughters were used as
subjects. In the case of the experimental sample, both mother and
daughter attended the programme. The control sample, however, was only
represented by the mother's participation in the parent education
programme. Target behaviours were defined in operational terms for the
research in order to make possible the objective observation thereof.
Each person's target behaviours were seperately observed, but the comparison
of the two mothers' behaviours, as well as that of the daughters,
was made possible by graphic representations.