Parent and Adolescent Perceptions of Parental Monitoring and Adolescent Risk Involvement

Abstract

SYNOPSISObjective. To compare parent and youth reports of the extent to which parents monitor their adolescents and to determine whether parents' perceptions of parental monitoring are more predictive of adolescent risk behavior. Design. Data were obtained from a cross-sectional sample of 270 parent -adolescent dyads recruited from rural communities in West Virginia. Parents completed a series of written questionnaires, and adolescents (12-16 years) provided information about their involvement in various risk behaviors. Results. Parent perceptions of parental monitoring efforts did not relate to adolescent perceptions of parental monitoring; parents generally perceived themselves to have more information about their adolescents' whereabouts and activities than their adolescents reported. No main effects of age or gender were found in the discrepancies between parent and adolescent monitoring reports. Adolescent reports of monitoring were negatively correlated with adolescent drinking, marijuana use, and sexual activity over the previous 6-month period. Adolescent risk behaviors were predicted by adolescent reports of parental monitoring alone. Conclusions. Parents and adolescents perceive the magnitude of parental monitoring efforts differently even when both parties perceive parents to know much about adolescent activities. Adolescents' perceptions of how much their parents know about their activities are more predictive of their own involvement in risk behaviors than their parents' perceptions about their own monitoring efforts.

The Effects of Parental Monitoring and Communication on Adolescent Substance Use and Risky Sexual Activity: A Systematic Review

“…Of the final twenty articles included in the study, thirteen used cross-sectional study designs [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] and seven had longitudinal study designs [35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. The majority of the studies (12/20) were conducted in the USA [22-26, 29, 31, 33, 34, 38, 40, 41].…”

“…However, one study consisted of an equal split in male/female adolescent respondents [38], while another study had only female caregiver respondents [26]. Four of the twenty studies sought a parent-child dyad for the sample [29,34,36,38,40], all of which were mother-child respondents even though both parents were recruited.…”

“…Amongst these three studies, the NRI was used in varied combination with the Parental Monitoring Scale [22,35,38], Alabama Parenting Questionnaire: Child Form and the Parental Control Scale [41], all instruments aimed at measuring adolescents' perceptions of the level of parental behaviour control or level of parental monitoring knowledge. Additionally Parental knowledge was assessed with the Parental Knowledge Questionnaire [36,37,39] as well as the 4 item Caregiving monitoring Measure [29].…”

“…Other tests used were the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) [36], Drug Involvements Scale (DISA) [38], the University of Michigan Composite International Diagnostic Instrument (assesses problematic alcohol use) [40], Eysenck and Eysenck Inventory (assess risk taking) [40] and the Youth Health Risk Behaviour Inventory [29]. 1 Was the sampling method representative of the population intended to the study?…”

“…Fifteen of the twenty studies defined parenting practices [22,23,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]41]. Parenting practice was also defined as parental monitoring or parental control.…”