Mothers’ Strategies of Monitoring Adolescents: A Phenomenological Study in Terms of Privacy and Personal Space

Abstract

In this study, mothers' experiences of monitoring their adolescents is examined in terms of privacy and personal space. We aimed to understand how much information mothers have about their adolescents, which strategies they use to access information and how they experience the process in terms of their perceptions of privacy and personal space. Adopting an interpretive phenomenological approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 adolescents’ mothers and interpretive phenomenological analysis was used for data analysis. Results of the study revealed that Mothers lack a definition for what is private space, privacy or personal space for their adolescents. Mothers’ sense of control over the information is related to Open communication and mutual trust between mothers and their adolescents, the gender of the adolescent, the parental role of the father and negative past experiences about adolescence. Finally mothers prefer multiple monitoring strategies in different combinations to monitor their adolescents.