ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a series of recurring patterns of organization within the relationships between parents and adolescent children, which we have identified as being responsible for the developing of relevant difficulties. Each pattern will be presented, together with its definition, through the following characteristics: the usual ways of communication; type of relationship; its rules; the emerging meanings; and the consequences in people’s actions. The couple’s democratic communicative style grows into a situation that offers equal power in negotiation and in the sharing of conditions. The style of democratic–permissive communication, which might have been functional and positive in the couple’s relationship, can create the ideal climate for little tyrants to breed when the same style is transferred to an extended family context. In the organization of family life, a balanced situation tends to be created with a distribution of tasks among all the members, but it is often the case that there is toleration of children not carrying out their tasks.
