Effects of the Weakening of parental role in some behaviors of children in the school environment, in contemporaneity

Author(s)

Sandra Aparecida Serra Zanetti

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Psicologia (IP/SBD)
• Defense date: 2008-11-07

Examining board members

Isabel Cristina Gomes; Maria de Fatima Araujo; Audrey Setton Lopes de Souza

• Advisor: Isabel Cristina Gomes

Abstract

The phenomenon of the Weakening of parental role, in contemporary family, nowadays, is related to difficulties that parents have in educating their children, which is due to insecurity and doubts about the position that they should assume before their children. Facing that, this dissertation aimed to understand the correlation between parents who showed characteristics of the weakening of parental role and the frequent emergence of aggressive behaviors, stubbornness and/or agitation in children from two to five years old, in a school environment. We hypothesized that the children who were expressing these behaviors at school before the teacher could be revealing, as a symptom, a weakened position of their parents authority. We used a methodology of field work, the design study of \'case-control\', through the comparison among groups with a qualitative approach. We intended the contact with this phenomenon through school. Children were observed as well as parents and teachers were interviewed with routed interviews previously developed. Finally, it was observed the playful interaction of parents and their children. The material collected was analyzed in each family, in four categories of analysis, with a theoretical reference of the psychoanalysis, particularly, Freud and Winnicott, as well as the socio-cultural, historical and psychological theoretical construct about the phenomenon. We note that the presence of the \'weakening of parental roles\' is related to parents whose children demonstrated frequent aggressive behavior, stubbornness and/or agitation in school. This phenomenon is subjected to influences of contemporary aspects and values, although those influences are only able to generate conflicts when articulated with the difficulties in the dynamics of marital and parental couple, favoring for this, the lack of coherence and consistency of parents in their own relationship and consequently, with their children. (AU)