Research Question: the Presence or Absence of Parents

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Essential Question: How does the presence or absence of parents affect adolescent development?

Focus Questions: What roles do parents play in adolescent development? Can adolescents find surrogate parents (adults who fill in for what an adolescent is lacking in parents, like teachers), and how much of an impact do these surrogate relationships make? (Can the effects be long-lasting?) What role does a present parent play in adolescent development that adolescents with absent parents miss out on? Which parts of adolescent development are affected most by parents? Are all of the effects of absent parents negative? What might be some positive effects? 

Overview: As a foster alum, I know how the absence of parents affected me personally. I had tremendous responsibility at a very early age that made me feel like I had to grow up quickly. I had abandonment issues (some of which I still struggle with today, despite years of counseling). I experience trauma. However, on the other side of that same coin, I gained incredible empathy and an awareness of others. I can spot someone who feels alone or ostracized a mile away, and this enables me to better help people. I want to be a teacher because of my experiences.

I know a little bit about the four types of parenting (authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved) from my Adolescent Development class, and I know how each type can affect adolescent development. This study is really interesting, and I recommend all of you to look into it, especially if you are going into education. I know that parental involvement positively correlates with student success as well.

Why: I selected this topic because of my personal connection with it. I have a soft spot and a passion for adolescents who have low levels of parental involvement. Parents do not have to be completely absent for an adolescent to feel unsupported or alone. Additionally, students with completely absent parents are not always in the foster system. Some live with grandparents or other family members, some are homeless, and the list goes on. I received many of the things I was looking for from parents from teachers. I'd like to look into what I can find in research about how other adults can fill in for where adolescents lack.

Titles: I'd like to tie this research to La Línea, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, The Hate U Give, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian because the protagonists have different levels of parental involvement and support, and it would be interesting to compare and contrast them. I may not hit all of those titles in my final paper, but I want to at least look at them.

Resources: I'm going to use the library database, of course. I also have statistics about student academic success from a foster charity I volunteer for called Fostering Great Ideas. I plan on reaching out to them and find out how they got those figures (like that for example, only 2% of Foster Youth go on to and graduate college with a Bachelor's Degree) and see if those statistics would hold up as evidence in an academic argument. 

Preliminary Claim: The presence of parents positively correlates with the success of adolescents.

Challenges/Obstacles: How can I define "presence"? Are uninvolved parents "present?" How do I define success in adolescence? Academically? Can a parent be too present? Does race or social class issues interfere with or distort data? Would an adolescent with very wealthy parents who send him or her off to a boarding school be on the same level as an abandoned adolescent in a group home? 

Comments

  1. Chelsea KNovember 11, 2020 at 12:06 PM

    "Parents do not have to be completely absent for an adolescent to feel unsupported or alone. Additionally, students with completely absent parents are not always in the foster system. Some live with grandparents or other family members, some are homeless, and the list goes on..."

    This is actually a subject relevant to my own paper. Sex trafficking victims often come from “broken” homes and suffer from emotional issues that predators manipulate in order to create more malleable victims. I’m glad to hear you considering lack of involvement as well as absenteeism in relation to parental impact on development. I have nothing to substantiate this, save for my own experiences, but I feel like increasingly detached and overly attached parents are becoming a serious issue in our society. The middle ground in parenting seems to be dissipating and I don’t really know why that is. I’ll be interested to see what information your search turns up.

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  2. Callum CarrNovember 11, 2020 at 1:27 PM

    I love this topic, Todd. And I like how you tied it back to you personally. I'm glad to see so many of the books we have read this semester in your titles section. Have you by any chance read The Perks of Being a Wallflower? I think there is a lot in that book that could be used for this conversation/your paper. I also think there is somewhat of a surrogate parent in Charlie's English teacher. I'm looking forward to seeing your presentation.

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