Conflict Dynamics and the Transformation of the Parent-Adolescent Relationship

Parent-adolescent conflicts are an important feature of adolescent development. Conflicts have been associated with adolescent psychosocial adjustment, the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship, and the development of adolescent autonomy and interpersonal problem-solving skills. In this chapter, I explore the role of parent-adolescent conflicts in the transformation of the parent-adolescent relationship from the dynamic systems perspective. First, I introduce a model of the parent-adolescent relationship as a temporal interpersonal emotion system (TIES) that consists of two self-regulating individuals within a dyadic system at multiple time scales. Then, I review research on parent-adolescent conflicts that demonstrates parent-adolescent TIES using the dynamic systems concepts of attractors, flexibility and rigidity, and phase transitions. Finally, I discuss the value that the dynamic systems approach brings to understanding parent-adolescent conflicts as an important interpersonal developmental context by pointing to important future directions in research and applied settings.