Exploring the Dynamic of Mother-Adolescents Closeness

Abstract

This study aims to look at the dynamic of mother-adolescent closeness, and to exploring the reasons why the adolescents feel close to their mother. A total of 1523 university student (male = 479 ; female = 1044) at Diponegoro University completed an open-ended questionnaire developed by Kim (2010) that asked how close they feel to their mother as well as the reason why they feel close to their mother. The data was analyzed using indigenous psychological approach of analyzing the content of open-ended responses. Results have shown that adolescents feel close to their mother because she fulfilling her children emotional needs (63.5%), fulfilling physical needs (15.1%), being a good role model (7.5%) and because of consanguinity (5.3%). More verification on details of categories are required for the future research on closeness between mother and child relationship. Key words: closeness, mother-adolescent relationship s