Behavioural Disorders in Early Adolescents and Influencing Parental Variables

Abstract

Early adolescence, a period of transition between childhood and late adolescence, is where one experience dramatic changes physically, and psychologically. These transitions cause cognitive, emotional, and social changes. The developmental changes that occur during this period cause varying degrees of disturbance in them. The period of transition leaves its mark on the individual’s behaviour, as they feel unsure of themselves and insecure in their status. This intrudes them to be aggressive, self conscious and withdrawn. When an individual’s behaviour is atypical for a particular age and this leads to poor adjustment, it may be termed as behavioural problems. Parents play a significant role in the early adolescents’ development because of the genes they contribute and the environment they provide. Though researches have been carried out focusing family environment of early adolescents, the investigators were interested to find if parental education and occupation can be significant contributors to the behavioural disorders exhibited by early adolescents. The study was designed to investigate the impact of parental occupation on behavioural disorders in early adolescents, studying in Standard IX. Random sampling technique was done on the basis of nature of the school, locality of school, type of school and medium of instruction to draw the sample size of 1275. Self constructed tool on Behavioural Disorders was used. Collected data were analyzed using statistical techniques such as t-test, ANOVA and Chi-square test. The statistical results revealed that parental occupation significantly contributed to the behavioural problems in early adolescents but not the parental education. It reveals that quality time spent by the parents with their early adolescents build up positive behaviour development.