Typical parent education programs expect that parents of teenagers can (1) be empathetic listeners, (2) identify and express their own inner feelings, thoughts, and opinions, etc., (3) tolerate diversity of ideas, (4) set limits for their teenagers, and (5) take a perspective on their parenting processes. In other words, such programs assume that all parents of teenagers have the same abilities and are at the same developmental level.
This study challenged this assumption and addressed the issue of readiness for parenting. Robert Kegan's subject-object theory was used as a context for the study. Twenty parents of teenagers were interviewed using Kegan and colleagues' subject-object interview. The interviews were used to determine how parents were thinking about their parenting experiences, or, in other words, how these parents were structuring meaning around their parenting experiences. The analyses of these interviews, which were done by a certified subject-object assessor and myself, determined what was "subject" and what was "object" in the parents' meaning-making structure. We found subject-object data that represented six different meaning-making structures, or in other words, six different developmental levels. The subject-object data demonstrated abilities and kinds of enmeshment specific to the developmental level. My research suggests that identification of abilities and specific kinds of enmeshment can be useful to helping professionals. This kind of identification which is defined from subject-object developmental levels can; (1) locate the source of authority in the parenting, (2) utilize a language that matches the enmeshment, (3) anticipate the kind of projections that will be generated by the parents, and (4) estimate the level of skill mastery in these four areas: empathetic response and active listening; communication of inner process and leveling; conflict resolution and problem solving; and, limit setting.
