Adolescents’ posttraumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic: The links between differentiation of self, parents’ posttraumatic growth, and adolescents’ gender

The COVID-19 outbreak produced a threatening and chaotic environment for adolescents, potentially affecting adolescent developmental tasks such as differentiation of self. Yet positive psychological changes such as posttraumatic growth (PTG) may also occur when adolescents struggle with such challenging circumstances. In this study, we focused on 134 parent–child pairs comprising Israeli adolescents (ages 11–17) and one of their parents (ages 30–59), two years after the initial COVID-19 outbreak. Participants were recruited using snowball and convenience sampling methods and completed online self-report questionnaires, which included background data, the post-traumatic growth inventory, and the differentiation of self inventory. We explored a moderated mediation model where parents’ PTG served as a mediator in the association between adolescents’ differentiation of self and adolescents’ PTG, with adolescents’ gender moderating this mediation. Results revealed a positive association between adolescents’ PTG and parents’ PTG, and negative associations between adolescents’ differentiation of self and adolescents’ PTG/parents’ PTG. Further, results confirmed the moderated mediation model for the association between parents’ and adolescents’ PTG, but not for the association between adolescents’ differentiation of self and adolescents’ PTG. Adolescents’ higher differentiation of self was associated with parents’ lower PTG, which in turn was associated with adolescents’ lower PTG, among male adolescents only. Overall, the study results shed light on the importance of tailoring crisis interventions to the family system as a whole, given that at traumatic times in particular the mutual effect of parent–child distress may foster a positive outcome such as PTG. In addition, clinicians might wish to consider how to utilize adolescents’ differentiation of self in family therapy, as it was found in this study to be a resource facilitating recovery after negative life events and may thus enhance well-being.