ATTACHMENT TO PARENTS AS A DRIVER OF ADOLESCENT RESILIENCE

Abstract

The paper analyses the results of studies on attachment to parents as a driver of adolescent resilience. It has been proven that in the conditions of a full-scale, long-lasting war in Ukraine, adolescents are a vulnerable age group, with the traditional contradictory features of personality formation being compounded by the difficult conditions of social existence. Similarly, studies have confirmed the significance of studying the content and nature of parent-child relationships on the development of adolescent resilience as a leading feature of their successful adaptation to difficult national realities and total uncertainty of social existence. The fact-finding study revealed that adolescents have the highest average values of attachment to their peers, slightly lower values to their mothers, and the lowest values to their fathers. The dominance of attachment to peers can be explained by the leading activity of adolescents, i.e., trustful communication. This also confirms the prevalence of trust in peers as a partial manifestation of adolescent attachment. However, the largest number of adolescents with a high level of attachment is to their mothers, not to their peers. In addition, the indicators of activity of communication with mothers are dominant among the surveyed adolescents compared to interactions with peers. The highest rates of adolescent alienation were recorded in relation to fathers, and the lowest ones in relation to mothers. It has been established that an influential driver of adolescent resilience is their attachment to both parents. The respondents’ attachment to their mothers directly is correlated with their attachment to their fathers, which indicates the importance of favourable interaction with both parents, if any. Thus, it is proved that adolescent attachment to parents and positive parent-child relationships in the family are influential factors in the resilience development as a leading personal trait of Ukrainian adolescents.