THE IMPACT OF PARENTAL ABSENCE ON ADOLESCENT PSYCHOLOGY: CURRENT SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS

Abstract

Parental absence can alter the emotional, behavioural, academic, and social environments in which adolescents develop, yet its consequences are not uniformly negative. This study examines psychological adjustment among 560 high school students living without one or both parents and identifies potential protective responses for schools, families, and communities. A cross-sectional, multi-mode survey design was used. The source study reports paper-based administration, online questionnaires through SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, and Qualtrics, direct interviews with students and parents, and computer-assisted telephone surveys. Quantitative responses were processed in SPSS 26.0. The reported questionnaire results cover five domains: emotional experience, behavioural regulation, learning-related psychology, social relationships, and positive adaptation. Descriptive analysis shows particularly high frequencies of loneliness (91.07%), sadness (69.10%), lack of direction (80.53%), difficulty in decision-making (71.42%), inadequate academic completion (91.07%), lack of academic support (83.57%), and over-reliance on peers for emotional support (83.57%). At the same time, respondents frequently reported independence (89.10%), faster maturity (87.32%), resilience (83.21%), and self-reliance (80.53%). The findings indicate that parental absence should not be interpreted as a deterministic pathway to poor adjustment. Rather, it constitutes a developmental risk context in which negative and adaptive responses may coexist. Effective intervention should therefore combine emotional counselling, academic monitoring, structured extracurricular participation, involvement of extended family, and sustained parent-adolescent communication where feasible.