Pedagogical anamnesis: How professional parents collect information from adolescents through conversation

Abstract

Parents often talk with their adolescent children to obtain information about their doings. They rely largely on these discussions to plan a pedagogical policy that fits the adolescents' perspectives. In this study, we analysed conversations between professional parents and out-of-home-placed adolescents. The study is based on 15 parent-child interactions, coming from an analysis of over 300 hours of video-recordings in six family treatment homes in the Netherlands. Four practices of professional parents were distinguished: soliciting, sounding, suggesting, and advising. Similar to physicians, parents negotiate with adolescents about the best way to deal with the problems in their lives rather than impose disciplinary measures.