raising adolescent children as a developmental task of iranian middle-aged mothers: a qualitative study

Background: most parents consider adolescence to be the most difficult stage of parenting. parentalpractice is a determining factor in adolescents’ outcomes. mothers play the main role of parenting iniran. coinciding the transition of adolescence with the transition of middle-aged mothers can affectthe mothers’ parenting practice. the present study aimed at explaining the iranian mothers’ practicein parenting an adolescent child.methods: this qualitative conventional content analysis was conducted from july 2018 to november2019 in kashan. 21 in-depth semi-structured interviews with mothers of adolescent children wereperformed using a purposive sampling method. the data were analyzed through conventional contentanalysis. data collection and analysis were performed simultaneously using maxqdav10 software.results: regarding the study objectives, two themes and six main categories were identified. thetheme of ‘laying the groundwork for upbringing’ was detected by two main categories: ‘meeting theneeds and ‘effective interaction with the adolescent’; also, the theme of ‘individual-social capacitybuilding’ was explained by four main categories: ‘helping to gain independence’, ‘modeling individualsocialbehavior’, ‘socializing the adolescent’, and ‘preparing to accept future roles’.conclusion: mothers’ practice was mainly focused on adolescents’ independence, college education,career prospects, and marriage preparation and respect for older adults. consistent with this transitionto modernity, and contrary to the collectivist values of iranian society, mothers’ practice was in linewith developing adolescents’ independence and building their self-confidence, which is close to theauthoritative parenting style.