Marital satisfaction of mothers and perceived quality of day-to-day interactions their adolescent daughters

The key objective of this study was to assess the quality of day-to-day interaction between mothers and their adolescent daughters. Sixteen mothers and an equal number of adolescents took part in four discussion groups, composed according to the marital satisfaction of the mothers. Discussion content was codified using a grid to identify the warmth and alienation parameters of participants' remarks. Results showed that satisfied mothers, as opposed to dissatisfied mothers: a) mentioned signs of affection more often than did adolescents as a component of a warm relationship with their daughters; b) noted more often than the adolescents that they were affected by their daughters' physical alienation; and c) were more concerned by the negative aspects of their marital relationships than were their daughters. Results also revealed that: a) the adolescents were influenced more frequently by the element of control in their relationships with their mothers; and b) this difference was greater among the adolescent daughters of satisfied mothers than among the children of dissatisfied mothers. The results have been interpreted with regard to the developmental changes that occur between a mother and her daughter during the child's adolescence in mind.