UNICEF Georgia: Many parents struggle to fulfill their obligations
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, December 11
Majority of adolescents’ parents in Georgia practice an authoritarian parenting style and apply physical and psychological punishment methods; parents are mostly engaged in caring for their adolescent’s material and physical wellbeing, less in psycho-emotional development – these are some of the findings of the ‘National Study on Parenting of Adolescents and Parenting Support programmes in Georgia’ released by UNICEF Georgia on Monday.
“Adolescence presents a crucially important window of opportunity to influence the development of children’s brains – and thus, their futures,” said UNICEF Representative in Georgia Dr. Ghassan Khalil.
“Parents need to know just how influential they are in their adolescence life. Parents need to impact their children’s skills to cope with different developmental challenges. But parents also need guidance to understand all this. In Georgia, there are no parenting support programmes. The objective of our study is to support the Government in developing national policies and programmes for parents of adolescents so that they are equipped with competencies they need for positive parenting and constructive support to the adolescents.”
The study shows that many caregivers in Georgia struggle to fulfill their basic obligations of psycho-emotional care. There are cases, when adolescents feel that they are not being supported by their parents during some of the most emotional periods, adversely affecting their psychosocial well-being.
“Few parents are involved in such important aspects of adolescents’ life as health, prevention of risky behavior, sexual and reproductive health, psychological well-being, and prevention of violence,” the study reads.
Countries that participated in the research included Bulgaria, Belarus, Georgia, Montenegro, Moldova, Romania. The qualitative study methodology - focus groups discussions and in-depth interviews - were used for collecting the data.
The goal of the research was to collect basic information on how parenting is understood, perceived and practiced by parents/caregivers of adolescent girls and boys in Georgia; how do individual, interpersonal and macro factors affect parenting dynamics and influence parenting styles and practices; as well as where/when do parents of adolescents and adolescents themselves address formal and informal support.
