Stories of Hope: Parental Optimism in Narratives about Adolescent Children

Abstract

This longitudinal study focused on the level of optimism expressed in stories that mothers and fathers told about their adolescent children, and its relations to subsequent parenting practices. The investigation involved 35 families, focusing on adolescents aged 14 at Time 1 and 16 at Time 2, on average. Stories of an incident illustrating how the parent had taught values to the child were scored for two separate indices of optimism, overall tone of the narrative, and a focus on growth rather than control in socialization. As predicted, narrative optimism at Time 1 was generally associated at Time 2 with reports of more autonomy-granting to the child and with less punitiveness. This research provides supportive evidence for a construct of `parent optimism,' and indicates that it is reflected in meaningful ways in the stories that parents tell about family life and relationships.