AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
Among the characteristics of the family environment such as
"success orientation" (highlighting competitiveness and better
results in the family), "active-recreational orientation" (involving
the family in sports and leisure activities), "moral-religious
orientation" (dealing with the worldview and ethical values and
problems ) and drug use among pubescent, we did not reveal any
significant links.
According to our findings, the characteristics of the family
environment, such as cohesion, expressiveness, organization,
conversation orientation, conflict, intellectual-cultural
orientation, and moral-religious orientation, have a significant
relationship with the delinquent behavior of pubescents. The
family characteristic of "cohesion" within the meaning of
expressing interest, support, and help among family members
has proved to be important in relation to delinquency, thus we
are expressing a unified finding with Nielsen Sobotková et.al.
(2014). The greater the coherence between family members is,
there is a lower risk of delinquent behavior among pubescents.
Hessler and Katz (2010) talk about the importance of regulating
emotions in terms of delinquency, which is also related to our
examined family characteristic "expressiveness" within the
meaning of open manifestations of emotions and enabling honest
behavior among family members. Emotional manifestations are
very important in the family, their presence contributes to the
reduction of delinquency of pubescents, and it has a protective
character. The family characteristics "organization" within the
meaning of clearly defined responsibilities and rules has also
proved to be significant in relation to the delinquency of
pubescents. The greater order in the family is, there is the less
the likelihood of the occurrence of this risky form of behavior in
this age cohort. Our finding is in accordance with the authors
Nielsen Sobotková et.al. (2014), who state the importance of
clearly determined rules in the family environment in relation to
problems in adolescent behavior. Equally at the level of the
family characteristic "conversation orientation", we confirmed if
parents talk to children and discuss with them, if they verbally
show respect and esteem to each other, the risk of the occurrence
of delinquent behavior among pubescents living in such families
is lower. The importance of communication between family
members in a protective direction is also described by Ryan,
Roman and Okwany (2015). In our research, we also identified
the importance of the relationship between family characteristics
"intellectual-cultural" orientation and delinquent behavior in the
direction that, the more family members focus on activities of
social, intellectual, cultural or political nature, the risk of
pubescent delinquency is lower, so it has protective importance.
The "moral-worldview orientation" has an equal protective
attitude towards delinquent behavior (the more family members
deal with the worldview and ethical values and problems, the
risk of the occurrence of pubescent delinquency is lower). The
family characteristic "conflict" within the meaning of open
manifestations of aggression, anger, and conflicting interaction
between family members has proved to be significant in relation
to pubescent delinquency. The higher family conflict represents
a high risk of the occurrence of this form of risky behavior
among pubescents, which supports the findings of Hušvetyová
and Sarmány Schuller (2004) and Verešová and Hušvétyová
(2005). "Control" as another characteristic of the family
environment within the meaning of the degree of control among
family members, it proved to be insignificant in connection with
the delinquency of pubescents. In this regard, we do not support
the claims of Van Wert et al. (2018), Gottfredson and Hirshi
(1990, in Ondrušková, Pružinská, and Pavelová, 2016), who
write about the importance of control in the prevention of
delinquent behavior of children and adolescents. This
discrepancy in the findings may be related to differences in the
nature of the control. Ondrušková, Pružinská, and Pavelová
(2016) write about the fact that parents control especially their
children's leisure time, while the items related to control in our
questionnaire were related to control among family members
only within their family environment, and therefore not to
activities that perform pubescent voluntarily outside the family.
According to our findings, among the characteristics of the
family environment such as "independence" (mutual
encouragement in independence, decision-making, and self-
sufficiency in solving one's own problems), "success orientation"
(highlighting competitiveness and better results in the family),
"active recreational orientation" (involvement of the family in
sports and recreational activities) and pubescent delinquency,
there is no significant relationship.
Characteristics of the family environment - cohesion,
organization, conversation orientation, conflict and moral-
worldview orientation have a significant relationship with
bullying in the sense of perception of self as the victim of
bullying in the age cohort of pubescents. We confirmed
protective nature of family cohesion (similar to Cluver, Bowes,
and Gardner, 2010), family organization (similar to Nielsen
Sobotková et.al., 2014), conversational orientations (similar to
Ryan, Roman, and Okwany, 2015), moral-worldview orientation
in relation to delinquent manifestations of behavior of
pubescents. Contrarily, we confirmed the risk dimension of the
conflict in family, which is manifested by anger, aggressive
manifestations of family members in the direction of
strengthening the probability of perceiving the pubescent as a
victim of bullying in the school environment. In our research, we
did not confirm any significant relationships between perception
of self as victims of bullying among pubescents and family
control, independence in decision-making and self-sufficiency in
solving problems in the family, family success orientation,
intellectual-cultural orientation of family member, as well as the
active-recreational orientation of the family.
Our research, as well as the research in the contribution of the
mentioned experts, underlines the importance of monitoring
factors that are related (correlative, mediative or predictive) to
risk behavior or its individual types. It can be clearly stated that
the characteristics of family environment play a significant role
in protectiveness and promote protection of the health of
adolescents (especially open and empathetic communication
between family members centered on mutual respect and esteem;
healthy family rules and adequate control behavior; coherence in
expressing interest, support and assistance among family
members; expressiveness and congruent expression of emotions
and feelings in the family environment; and others), while others
act as risk factors and their accumulation or strong action
promotes manifestations of risky behavior or its individual types
(for example, increased family conflict or the high independence
of family members, which can lead to autonomous but high
individualized decisions and actions independent of decisions
and actions of the potential of other family members). Time,
society, perception and functioning of the family, values are
constantly changing and evolving in a different direction, so we
highly recommend conducting research of this nature in the
future, so that we have scientific knowledge as up-to-date as
possible with emphasis on the influence of the family and its
characteristics on risky behavior in adolescents. In the context of
our findings and the little research in the field of characteristics
of the family environment, such as independence, intellectual-
cultural orientation and moral-worldview orientation, we
consider it to be important to pay attention to research in a
broader sense so that we can confirm or discuss our findings
with the cohort pubescents, as well as with younger and older
age cohorts.
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