ROCHESTER, N.Y., Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Teens often feel obliged to fulfill parental requests in everyday situations even if the requests clash with a teen's personal desires, U.S. researchers said.
Researchers at the University of Rochester, the University of Missouri-Columbia and the University of Illinois at Chicago asked almost 120 seventh and 10th graders and their parents to react to stories in where either parents or teens asked for help.
When asked to judge what action the protagonist should take, including saying no because of personal desires, both adolescents and parents considered the family role of those asking help and the amount of help needed and attempted to balance personal desires and family need.
The study, published in Child Development, found parents thought it more acceptable for teens to say no to helping family than did the teens themselves.
Adolescents and parents appear to balance and coordinate family members' requests for help with conflicting personal desires and to consider both the family role of the person asking for help and how much help is needed, the study said.
However, the researchers found more parents of 10th graders said it was selfish to ignore requests for help and satisfy personal desires in situations when the needs were big than did parents of seventh graders. More middle adolescents said it was less selfish to meet personal desires in those situations than did young adolescents.
