Parental Autonomy Support in the Context of Parent-Child Negotiation for Children’s Independent Mobility : 'I Always Feel Safer With My Parents' to 'Boom! Bust Down Those Walls!'

UBC Faculty Research and Publications

Parental Autonomy Support in the Context of Parent-Child Negotiation for Children’s Independent Mobility : 'I Always Feel Safer With My Parents' to 'Boom! Bust Down Those Walls!' Han, Christina; Brussoni, Mariana; Mâsse, Louise C.

Abstract

Autonomy – acting volitionally with a sense of choice – is a crucial right for children. Given parents’ pivotal position in their child’s autonomy development, we examined how parental autonomy support and children’s need for autonomy were negotiated and manifested in the context of children’s independent mobility – children’s ability to play, walk or cycle unsupervised. We interviewed 105 Canadian children between 10 and 13-years-old and their parents (n = 135) to examine child-parents’ negotiation patterns as to children’s independent mobility. Four patterns emerged, varying on parental autonomy support and children’s need/motivation for independent mobility: (1) child/parent dyad wants to increase independent mobility; (2) child only wants to increase independent mobility while parents do not; (3) child does not want to increase independent mobility while parents do; and (4) child/parent dyad does not want to increase independent mobility. Findings illuminate the importance of recognizing children as active and capable agents of change.

Item Metadata

Title	Parental Autonomy Support in the Context of Parent-Child Negotiation for Children’s Independent Mobility : 'I Always Feel Safer With My Parents' to 'Boom! Bust Down Those Walls!'
Creator	Han, Christina; Brussoni, Mariana; Mâsse, Louise C.
Contributor	B.C. Injury Research and Prevention Unit; Children's Hospital (Vancouver, B.C.)
Publisher	SAGE Publishing
Date Issued	2022
Description	Autonomy – acting volitionally with a sense of choice – is a crucial right for children. Given parents’ pivotal position in their child’s autonomy development, we examined how parental autonomy support and children’s need for autonomy were negotiated and manifested in the context of children’s independent mobility – children’s ability to play, walk or cycle unsupervised. We interviewed 105 Canadian children between 10 and 13-years-old and their parents (n = 135) to examine child-parents’ negotiation patterns as to children’s independent mobility. Four patterns emerged, varying on parental autonomy support and children’s need/motivation for independent mobility: (1) child/parent dyad wants to increase independent mobility; (2) child only wants to increase independent mobility while parents do not; (3) child does not want to increase independent mobility while parents do; and (4) child/parent dyad does not want to increase independent mobility. Findings illuminate the importance of recognizing children as active and capable agents of change.
Subject	Children and youth (0-19); Outdoor/risky play
Genre	Article
Type	Text
Language	eng
Date Available	2022-08-04
Provider	Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights	Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
DOI	10.14288/1.0416578
URI	http://hdl.handle.net/2429/82260
Affiliation	Medicine, Faculty of; Population and Public Health (SPPH), School of; Pediatrics, Department of; Other UBC
Citation	Han CS, Brussoni MJ, Mâsse LC. Parental Autonomy Support in the Context of Parent–Child Negotiation for Children’s Independent Mobility: ‘I Always Feel Safer With My Parents’ to ‘Boom! Bust Down Those Walls!’ The Journal of Early Adolescence. 2022;42(6):737-764.
Publisher DOI	10.1177/02724316211064513
Peer Review Status	Reviewed
Scholarly Level	Faculty; Researcher
Rights URI	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository	DSpace

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