How mothers experience their adolescents’ first year in high school

Abstract

ABSTRACTTransitions can have a profound impact on the person, their environment, and their occupations. Entering high school is a transition that has implications not only for the adolescent, but also for their family members. A greater understanding from an occupation perspective of how people and groups adapt to life transitions of one person is critical to understanding transition. The study objective was to gain an in-depth understanding of the lived experiences of parents whose adolescent child had recently transitioned into high school. This included exploring the parents’ experiences of transition on their role, routines and occupations when their child is in transition. This descriptive phenomenological study used semi-structured interviews to collect data from five mothers with a child in his or her first year of public high school in Vancouver, Canada and surrounding areas. Four themes were identified: 1) Venturing into the Known and Unknown, 2) Navigating Changing Occupational Demands, 3) Redesigning Parent-Child Communication, and 4) Collective Transition. This study demonstrates how this transition influences a change and has the potential to disrupt mothers’ routines and occupations (including family co-occupations). This study highlights the theme of meaningful connections in the study of occupation, and contributes to a growing body of evidence on life transitions by exploring the lived experience of a predictable life transition on roles, routines, and occupations of mothers with a child in his or her first year of high school.