| This project explored parents' perceptions of their adolescent's beliefs about parental divorce from a family systems theory perspective. During a parental divorce, much disruption occurs for the adolescent as well as the parents. Children are affected by the parental divorce in ways that are different from the parents' experience. Children and adolescents experience multiple losses during this time. In order to help their adolescent make this difficult transition in the best way possible, it is important for parents to understand their adolescent's beliefs about parental divorce. The Children's Beliefs about Parental Divorce Scale was used to measure adolescents' beliefs about parental divorce and their parent's perceptions of those beliefs. It was predicted that there would be no agreement in the scores between the parent's perceptions of the adolescent's beliefs about parental divorce and the adolescent's beliefs on the (1) peer ridicule and avoidance scale, (2) paternal blame scale, (3) maternal blame scale, (4) fear of abandonment scale, (5) hope for reunification scale, and (6) self-blame scale. Results indicated that there was no agreement between parent and adolescent responses on the six subscales; however, the small sample size limited the ability to fully test the research questions. |
