Key Words: Parent; Adolescent; Relationship; Value Conflict; Family

Relationship is a process through which the "messages", regardless of their nature and the instruments that are used, are being transferred from one person to the other. Therefore, the mutual action becomes possible (Mohseni, 2000:19). Values are the important qualifications of societies.

Values in different dimensions have great influences on actions and these can be observed. Most actions of the individuals result from innatevalues of the societies during the growth period of the individuals, and innate values in each generation have a relationship with the existence of a "valued generation" of that society (Yousefi,2004:27).

The most widely used typology of parenting behavior has been developed by Baumrind (1991). She identified three parenting styles: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive. Parents who practice the authoritarian style focus on their control of the child, and his/her obedience. A variety of problems were identified among the children of authoritarian parents. These children tend to be uncooperative and to suffer from low self-esteem, low initiative, and difficulties in making decisions in adulthood. Parents who adopt an authoritative style tend to have good nurturing skills and exercise moderate parental control to allow the child to become progressively more autonomous. Children raised according to this style are not completely restricted but are rather allowed a reasonable degree of latitude in their behavior. Parents who adopt the permissive style encourage their children's autonomy and enable them to make their own decisions and regulate their own activities. They avoid confrontation and tend to be warm and supportive people (Maccoby and Martin, 1983; Steinberg et al., 1994; Stewart and Bond, 2002).

In a recent study, Phinney and her colleagues (Phinney et al., in press) suggest that the developmental changes observed in adolescence are universally toward effecting a compromise or balance between self and other concerns.

Many researchers in different fields such as philosophy, education, economy, sociology, and psychology have paid attention to the concept of value (Khalifeh, 1999:15). It is natural that each generation is anxious about its outcome and has expectations of the next generation. He/she pays attention to this outcome and accepts the values and the customs and delivers them to the next generation. But the new generation is always unaware about the values and the importance of the outcomes. Because they have not understood what great capital has been spent for them and therefore, they do not pay attention to itand due to being young, follow the new patterns and values (Alikhani, 2003:29).

Values are separated ideals, while customs show the specified principles and rules that people are expected to observe. Customs show the obligations and not the social life (Aerabi, 1994:65). According to the views of Bals, the observers of public culture and historians believe that about every 10 years a new shape of generation mentality exists. (Bals, 2001:6).

Making no distinction between the different meanings of the generations, has provided the background for the combination of meanings from the generation (Azad Armaki, Ghafari, 2004: 27). For reviewing the generation gap between children and parents, some studies have been undertaken(Gilack, 1994, Zain Abadi, 1998, Teymouri, 1999). In most of this research, the religious, economic, social and political values between the two generations have been reviewed. These studies show that the gap between the generations is a common phenomenon and by considering the different conditions of the society, acceptance of the parents and the children in the society is generalized for study. Also other studies support the probability of contrast between the parents and the children on the negative social behavior on the part of the children. (Shek, 2001, Stephenson et al, 1998, Todd, 1972, Rajput, 1999).

Identity means establishing balance between yourself and others. In some cultures, identity is equivalent to the personality and the originality. In case a teenager does not become successful in shaping his/her individual identity, and in spite of the fact that it is from his/her unfavorable conditions of childhood or present unfavorable conditions, a crisis is created that is called the crisis of identity or becoming 'lost' (Sharafi, 2001:18). This is a window that one can look through to the matter of gap between the generations and the crisis of values in periods of life. The aim of this research is the identification of different values of two generations (fathers and children) and measuring the conflict of values between the two generations. Also this aim includes identifying the elements that resulted in the existence of a conflict of values between parents and their young children. The existence of a conflict of values causes friction and segregation and scratches the relationships of the generation. The non-existence of this conflict will result in the establishment of social order.

One of the important matters in the generation gap is the insufficiency in the process of transfer of values and customs to the new generation. According to Parsons, there is a matter in society named the transfer of essential values to the individuals in the society and these values specify the quality of the actions of individuals and they play an important role in the continuation of social order. On the one hand, the gap of generation is influenced by the social values, social supervision, individuality and training methods, and on the other hand, it is inspired from the cultural values such as diversity of values and identity crisis.

Value gap between the generations is causing a distinction between the values of two generations in such a way that the values of these two generations will not conform to each other.

Using special methods of training by parents such as reasoning against the powerful actions, has different influences on innating the values and ideas of parents by children.

According to Zimmel, the process of social acceptance, reaction paradigm against the conditional paradigm, considers parents as the special elements for the nourishing of childhood and teenager periods of children. The families put into practice the process of social acceptance through the education of customs and transfer of values and social order.

Innating the values is the inclination of the children in following the positive specialties of parents. Therefore, parents who put emphasis on affectionate methods such as reaction by the children and their acceptance, and also submitting their proper experiments for better understanding of social values by children, prevent the existence of a value reaction between themselves and their children.

In this research, the population consisted of 957 college level students of girls and boys of Amol city, in the academic year 2004-2005. As there are 4 college level centers in this city (two centers for girls and two centers for boys), at first, two centers were chosen according to the gender. Using simple random sampling, the sample consisted of 240 persons.

The variables in this research in the framework of questions of the specifications of the children (6 questions), fathers (9 questions) and 88 items related to the measurement of value conflicts between parents and children included the value gap between the generations, value supervision (ordering to do and ordering not to do by the parents to the children), contradiction of customs (imitation in wearing clothes), family contradiction (quarreling at home), individuality, value diversity (companionship with friends), value plainness, redundancy of messages (surplus, old and repeated), newness of messages, parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative, permissive), reference group, identity crisis and value hypocrisy according to the five point scale of Lickert and specifying the amount of approval or disapproval with each items which have been recognized. Also the measuring instrument (a questionnaire) with the calculation of Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.86), indicates a high credibility of the research instrument.

In the following table the existence of the relationship between the value diversity asked ofthe two generations, the reference group of fathers, family contradiction, individuality of the children, identity crisis of the children, newness of values by the fathers, plainness in the values of the fathers with the value contradiction of two generations, are shown in Table 1.

According to Table 1, the amount of correlation between the value contradiction and value conflict between the fathers and the children, indicates the meaningful relation between the two variables (sig=0.03). It also shows the amount of correlation between pattern accepting from the fathers, family contradiction, individuality of the children, identity crisis of the children, newness of values by the fathers, transparency in the values of fathers and value conflict between fathers and children, which is significant at the level of 0.02, 0.04, 0.04, 0.01, 0.04, and 0.05.

Also Table 2 shows no relationhip between the custom contradiction, supervision of fathers, hypocrisy of fathers and value redundant with value conflict between the two generations.

As Table 3 shows, there is no meaningful level between the authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles. But the amount of correlation of parenting style of permissive parents with value conflict of the two generations shows a meaningful level (sig = 0.05), which is the meaningfulness between the two variables.

Table 4 compares the Mean of value conflict according to gender. Table 4 shows the comparison of value conflict averages of the children (girls and boys) in respect to the fathers. By considering the results of the Levin test that shows the equality of variance in two societies, we come to the conclusion that the resultant average from the two groups, has no meaningful difference with each other (by considering the meaningful level of 0.12).

As mentioned before, between the custom contradiction and value conflict of two generations there is no meaningful relationship. However, there is a meaningful relationship between the value diversity and value conflict of the two generations and the resulted correlation between the two variables is in the reverse direction and 99 percent confidence is meaningful.

According to the opinions on value diversity, as the human being in society confronts different groups in which special values govern and the generation of the children in such a situation confront different values and sometimes contradicted values, this matter can result in value diversity of two generations. In its turn it can result in value conflict of the two generations and as the calculated average of these two variables are very close to each other, it can be said that they influence each other. But as the correlation shown is reversed, it is possible to conclude that the students from whom the questions have been asked, have referred to the values of their parents at the time of diversity.

Also it is observed that between the numbers of the reference group of the fathers with the amount of value conflict of the two generations, there is a meaningful relationship and the correlation direction between the two variables is reversed. It means that as little as the fathers are in reference group of the children, there is more value conflict between them and this relationship is confirmed by 99 percent confidence. This research shows that between the supervision of the fathers with value conflict, there is no meaningful relation and the resulted correlation between two variables is not meaningful. As much as the contradiction of families is increased, the amount of value conflict is increased too and the related hypothesis is confirmed with 99 percent confidence. According to the theories it is observed that the contradiction of fathers-children and the social behavior of the teenagers have influence on each other and these two have correlation. As much as the individuality of the children's generation is increased the amount of value conflict is increased too and vice versa. Therefore, there is a meaningful relationship between the two variables. According to the theories of individuality it is observed that by the increase of individuality in children generation, their binding to the values of the previous generation becomes less.

The analysis of the data shows that there is no meaningful relationship between the two methods of training (authoritarian, authoritative) with value conflict variable. But there is a meaningful relationship in permissive styles with the variable of value conflict.

According to the theories of identity crisis as cultural identity of the children faces crisis, they become less able to understand the values of the previous generations. Therefore, there is a meaningful relationship between these two variables and the direction of the correlation is positive. It means that this relationship is confirmed with 99 percent confidence. Also as much as the identity crisis of the children increases, the value conflict of the two generations is increased too and vice versa.

On the other hand, there is a meaningful relationship between the newness of values of the fathers with the value conflict. It means that as little as the newness of values of the fathers is, the value conflict is more, and this hypothesis is confirmed with 99 percent confidence.

The less the plainness of the values of the fathers for the children is, the value conflict is more and vice versa. This hypothesis has meaning with 99 percent confidence and the hypothesis under test is confirmed.

The averages of value conflict according to gender shows that between the value conflict and gender (girls and boys) there is no meaningful relationship. Of course this hypothesis has been confirmed in some researche and in other research has not been confirmed.

According to Inglehart (1989: 115), the resultant changes in society are based on economic and social transformation. Therefore, the cultural changes result in the differences between the generations. Also findings of this research in the case of existence of value conflict between the generations, confirms the results of the previous research (Teymouri,1999; Zein Abadi, 1998; Shek, 2001).

According to this principle, study on the conflict between parents and children for identifying the elements related to it, has special importance. The value conflict between parents and children in Iranian society in the recent two decades has confronted with more questions (Yousefi, 2004). According to the results of this research it seems that the reaction paradigm of George Zimmel can be a proper model for decreasing the value conflict between the generations.

As being the reference group, family contradiction, training methods, newness of value messages from the side of fathers, plainness of values from the side of fathers are identified as the influencing variables in value conflict and are mostly related to the parents, and by considering the passing situation of the society, and the challenges of the tradition; the parents understand this matter, through proper training especially through gatherings and meetings of the parents and the tutors, the society has changed and the situation of new thought, sense, and behavior style, needs change. Therefore, they should give this right to their children and do not consider them the enemy of their situation.

As individuality, the identity crisis and value diversity are influencing variables on the value conflict and are mostly related to the children, through proper education, it is proposed to the children not to rehjecte verything, and not to forget that it is not possible to discard all the previous cultural heritages, and to combine awareness with belief and faith.

Some research shows (Yousefi, 2004) that loyalty in behavior and speech are elements of social acceptance. Parents and children in this approach of training are influenced by awareness and faith, and both learn to accept the differences of each other and by putting themselves in the other onesposition, help each other to remove the value conflict by reaction. The authorities of cultural and educational institutions and the families by cooperation, by stressing the active participation in the field of the health of the society, will be able to strengthen the cultural identity of the children.

Although, the technique of self-report, on which this study relies, has been used in many studies of value conflict, it has important limitations. In this study, the results reflect how the children perceive their parents' parenting styles, and therefore the deductions that can be drawn from the results are open to question. Furthermore, more research is needed in a number of other cities to validate the present results.