Taking responsibility and communication : the keys to adolescence.

The following article focuses on parent-adolescent communication from a perspective of the progressive entrance into adulthood of 12-18 year-olds. The notion of responsibleness is presented here as the learning process towards self-management. The hypothesis of the existence of synchronism between the adolescents' search for autonomy and their parents' delegation of decision-making is drawn and tested using recent results obtained from a sample of Quebec families. The importance of quality communication in parent-adolescent adaptation is discussed in relation with the room given to teens in decisions that concern them. The authors finally suggest that this type of communication is fundamental to the mental health of youth within the family unit.