(DOWNLOAD) "Learning That an Adolescent Child is Gay Or Lesbian: The Parent Experience." by Social Work * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Learning That an Adolescent Child is Gay Or Lesbian: The Parent Experience.
- Author : Social Work
- Release Date : January 01, 2004
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 204 KB
Description
As increasing numbers of adolescents are claiming their gay and lesbian identities at an earlier age in conjunction with increased gay and lesbian activism, they are disclosing their sexual orientation to parents at an earlier stage of the family life cycle than their predecessors. Gay and lesbian youths recount stories of ejection from the home, emotional rejection, and family violence as a result of parents learning of their sexual orientation (Hammelman, 1993; Hunter & Schaecher, 1987; Savin-Williams, 1989, 1994). The breakdown in family relationships places the young person at high risk of social isolation, depression, and suicide (Kourany, 1987; Proctor & Groze, 1994; Remafedi, Farrow, & Deisher, 1991). Although we know that parents are coexperiencing the range of difficulties reflected in the personal accounts of these youths, there is little research exploring the parents' side of adolescent disclosure. Identifying how adolescent disclosure affects parent social-emotional functioning and the solidarity of the parent-child relationship and what interventions support healthy parent adjustment is important for parent and child well-being, family preservation, and culturally competent social work practice. This article draws from a phenomenological study of parents situated in the adolescent stage of the family life cycle--the time of parenting children in high school and the early years of college--before the point of launching children into independent lives. Using a social constructionist lens, the study strived to capture this phenomenon as it unfolds for parents and as it exists in relation to dominant societal themes. The focus therein lies in exploring how parents ascribe meaning to learning that an adolescent child is gay or lesbian and how their stories of parenting following disclosure are constructed from this meaning. Because of societal sanctions that have kept substantive understanding limited until recently, parenting gay or lesbian adolescents is being "socially constructed" as parents encounter the experience.