Dyadic Parent-Adolescent Role Confusion Dimensions: Development and Validation of an Observational Coding Scale

When parents lack the psychological resources necessary to meet their own emotional and interpersonal needs, they may look to offspring to meet caregiving, social, or romantic needs, which may lead to deviation from typical parent-child roles. Subsequently, a child may attempt to fill this role to maintain significant caregiver attachment and engage in role confusion. Three dimensions of role confusion have been proposed: adolescent as parent, adolescent as peer, and adolescent as partner. Existing research demonstrates overall role confusion relates to offspring borderline features, however there is a lack of empirical understanding of how parent-adolescent role confusion dimensions relate to offspring outcomes, namely behavioral problems and borderline features (affective instability, identity disturbance, negative relationships, self-harm/impulsivity; Morey, 1991). There are no existing observational systems to assess all three dimensions among parent-adolescent dyads. Because offspring may internalize and transmit role-confused dynamics intergenerationally, it is important to investigate role confusion dimensions to inform family-based interventions to address problematic family relations. The current study validated a new observational coding scale (Dyadic Parent-Adolescent Role Confusion Scale, DPARCS) for assessing the three dimensions of dyadic parent-adolescent role confusion. We validated the DPARCS by establishing criterion and discriminant validity for overall role confusion and dimensions with known groups of maternal diagnostic status and known correlates of adolescent behavioral problems and borderline symptomatology. Specifically, adolescent as parent role confusion uniquely related to adolescent identity disturbance, and adolescent as peer role confusion to adolescent negative relationships. This scale validation provides empirical support for the importance of examining role confusion dimensions and offers implications for future research and treatment for role confusion, risk factors, and adolescent functioning

Observing Parenting in the Context of Maternal Borderline Personality Disorder and Adolescent Symptomatology

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe and chronic disorder characterized by a distorted sense of self, fear of abandonment, and difficulties forming and maintaining relationships. Two empirically supported developmental antecedents of offspring borderline features include invalidating parenting practices and maternal BPD. Recent research found that parental psychological control is one type of invalidating parenting behavior that is related to maternal borderline symptoms. The current study observed maternal psychologically controlling behaviors among a sample of 56 adolescents ages 14-18 and their mothers, who were divided into groups of those diagnosed with BPD (n = 28) and those who did not have the disorders (n = 28). Results revealed that maternal psychological control was positively associated with mothers’ borderline features. Further, mothers with BPD used more psychological control compared to normative mothers. Post-hoc findings also demonstrated that maternal psychological control used by mothers with BPD differed based on adolescent gender. Additionally, analyses investigated at adolescent outcomes and revealed a positive correlation between maternal psychological control and adolescent borderline features and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The empirical and clinical implications of the associations of psychological control with both maternal BPD and adolescent outcomes are discussed