Parental Monitoring: A Reinterpretation

Author(s): Håkan Stattin and Margaret Kerr

Source: Child Development , Jul. - Aug., 2000, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 2000), pp.
1072-1085
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1132345

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Child Development, July/August 2000, Volume 71, Number 4, Pages 1072-1085

Parental Monitoring: A Reinterpretation

HAkan Stattin and Margaret Kerr

Monitoring (tracking and surveillance) of children's behavior is considered an essential parenting skill. Nu-
merous studies show that well-monitored youths are less involved in delinquency and other normbreaking be-
haviors, and scholars conclude that parents should track their children more carefully. This study questions
that conclusion. We point out that monitoring measures typically assess parents' knowledge but not its source,
and parents could get knowledge from their children's free disclosure of information as well as their own ac-
tive surveillance efforts. In our study of 703 14-year-olds in central Sweden and their parents, parental knowl-
edge came mainly from child disclosure, and child disclosure was the source of knowledge that was most
closely linked to broad and narrow measures of delinquency (normbreaking and police contact). These results
held for both children's and parents' reports, for both sexes, and were independent of whether the children
were exhibiting problem behavior or not. We conclude that tracking and surveillance is not the best prescrip-
tion for parental behavior and that a new prescription must rest on an understanding of the factors that deter-
mine child disclosure.

INTRODUCTION peers who approve of drug use (Chassin, Pillow, Cur-

Parents often comment on the temptations that teenag- ran, Molina, & Barrera, 1993). They are more
ers today face, and they want to know what they can gin using tobacco (Biglan, Duncan, Ary, &
do to minimize the chances that their child will fall 1995) and to increase their drug use over t
prey to bad influences. What advice can developmen- Darling, & Steinberg, 1995), and the poo
tal psychology offer them? One clear answer seems to displayed by alcoholic parents seems to
be that they can keep a close eye on what their children children's use of illegal substances (C
are doing, wherethat they can keep a close eye ong, and whom they are 1993). Poorly monitored youths d
(Crouter et al., 1990; White & Kaufman, 1997) and
with-they can monitor their children's behavior.
Parental monitoring is conceptualized as "a set of gage in more risky sexual activity (M
correlated parenting behaviors involving attention to Biglan, Ary, & Smolkowski, 1994; Rome
and tracking of the child's whereabouts, activities, Evidence also suggests that poorly mo
and adaptations" (Dishion & McMahon, 1998, p. 61)o have deviant friends (Dishion, Capald
and adaptations" (Dishion & McMahon, 1998, p. 61). L, 1995) and that they may become delinqu
This definition of monitoring as parental action is sim- Li, 1995) and that they may become de
ilar to the dictionary definition, in which the verb "to of peer pressure (Fridrich & Flannery,
monitor" means "to keep watch over or check as a more, longitudinal evidence suggests t
means of control" (Read et al., 1995, p. 822). Parental delinquency and drug use are related to po
monitoring figures prominently in theoretical models monitoring later on, and that poor monit
of the development of antisocial behavior. Theoretical to later delinquency (Aseltine, 1995; Barb
models
quate make parenting
monitoring, practices,
recurring including
links in inade-better
a causal chain The obvious prescription
monitoring-active for paren
surveillance

that starts with disruptive behavior, leads to hanging children's behavior. Snyder and Patters
out with deviant peers, and results in antisocial be- gest that parents must give children
havior (Reid & Patterson, 1989; Snyder & Patterson, about where they may go, with whom th
1987). Indeed, cross-sectional and longitudinal ciate, and when they must be home and
studies show that poorly monitored adolescents tend up' or track compliance with those rules
to be antisocial, delinquent, or criminal (for a review fective disciplinary action when th
of early work, see Patterson & Stouthamer-Loeber, lated" (p. 226). Joint monitoring has
1984; for empirical examples, see Cernkovich & Gior- as a final strategy for reducing risky s
dano, 1987; Grouter, MacDermid, McHale, & Perry- ". .. encourage parents of children's friend
Jenkins, 1990; McCord, 1986,e Sampson & Laub, 1994 gether to monitor the behavior of t
Weintraub & Gold, 1991). Poorly monitored youths (Romer et al., 1994, p. 985). Monitorin
also tend to use illegal substances (Flannery, Vazs- ? 2000 by the Society for Research in Child Develop
onyi, Torquati, & Fridrich, 1994) and associate with All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2000/7104-0023

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Stattin and Kerr 1073

suggested for preventing drug use: "The overall lesson friends for the information (parental solicitati
of this study appears to be that parental monitoring is Third, parents could impose rules and restricti
an appropriate strategy for parents attempting to deter their children's activities and associations, th
adolescents from engaging in substance use. Strong controlling the amount of freedom children h
parental monitoring helps to deter adolescents from do things without telling them (parental control)
using alcohol and drugs themselves and, as a conse- Which source of information is really behin
quence, prevents nonusing adolescents from associat- parental knowledge measures that have been
ing with drug-using peers. Since it is these drug- monitoring? Some preexisting findings suggest that
using peers who are likely to pressure teenagers to might be child disclosure. When several aspe
initiate or elevate substance use, strongly monitored parenting are examined together, the findings of
adolescents are, in essence, doubly protected from suggest that parent-child communication is
substance use involvement .. ." (Fletcher et al., 1995, beneficial than surveillance and control. One
pp. 269-270). Clearly, the prescription is for parents tested the idea that attachment to parents lowers
to use a firm hand and actively control their chil- likelihood of delinquency (Cernkovich & Gior
dren's behavior and associations. 1987). The researchers used several indirect measures
Recommending active control and surveillance of attachment, some of which dealt with parent-child
might be reasonable, on the basis of a cursory reading communication and the closeness of the relationship.
of the findings just reviewed, but it might be wrong. The results suggested that delinquents had poor com-
Why? Because parents who score high on monitoring munication with their parents. They were lower than
might not be exercising control or practicing surveil- nondelinquents on caring and trust (intimacy in the
lance at all. The most often-used monitoring measures parent-child relationship), identity support (parents'
ask about parents' knowledge of their children's activ- respect, acceptance, and support), and instrumental
ities, but they seldom ask about active tracking and communication (discussion of future plans). Many of
checking (the definition of monitoring). For example, the measures that were related to delinquency, then,
items such as the following ask adolescents to rate dealt directly with parent-child communication. Fur-
their parents' knowledge: "How much do your par- thermore, although delinquents were lower on "con
ents REALLY know ... Who your friends are? Where trol and supervision," the measure included knowl
you go at night? How you spend your money? What edge of the child's activities rather than active control
you do with your free time? Where you are most af- or supervision efforts, so it might actually have been a
ternoons after school?" (Fletcher et al., 1995, p. 262); measure of child disclosure. This study, then, sug
"Do your parents know where you are when you are gests that communication is at least as important as
away from home? Do your parents know who you are control. Others suggest that it is much more impor-
with when you are away from home?" (Weintraub & tant. In one study of parental involvement and school
Gold, 1991, p. 272); and "In my free time away from performance, parent-child agreement and parent
home, my parents know who I'm with and where I am." child discussion predicted higher grade-point aver-
(Cernkovich & Giordano, 1987, p. 303). These measures ages and achievement test scores, but measures o
do not ask how parents came to know these things. surveillance did not (Otto & Atkinson, 1997). In fact,
Other measures assess knowledge by asking parents parental monitoring of school work predicted lower,
and their children the same set of questions about the not higher, grades and test scores. In other words,
child's activities and then assessing agreement between communication was linked to good performance; sur
the two sets of answers (Crouter, Manke, & McHale, veillance was linked to bad performance. Further, in an
1995; Crouter et al., 1990; Patterson & Stouthamer- intervention study that attempted to reduce adoles
Loeber, 1984). But again, there is no telling how the infor- cents' substance use, parents were trained and encour
mation was gained. Even though the term monitoring aged to exert more active efforts to control their chil-
implies that the measures represent parents' tracking dren's associations with drug- and alcohol-using peers
and surveillance efforts, they actually represent an end and their access to alcohol (Cohen & Rice, 1995). The in-
product: parents' knowledge. [Hereafter, we use quota- tervention had no effect on adolescents' substance use.
tion marks to distinguish parental knowledge measures Nonetheless, parental knowledge of the child's where-
("monitoring") from the construct (monitoring)]. abouts, good parent-child rapport, and a respectful
In fact, parents could get knowledge of their chil- parent-child relationship were all associated with less
dren's activities in at least three conceivable ways. substance use. Again, parent-child communication
First, the children could tell them spontaneously, was beneficial; surveillance and control were not.
without any prompting (child disclosure). Second, The present study addresses two major questions
parents could ask their children and their children's about parental monitoring. The first concerns whether

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1074 Child Development

parents' knowledge of their children's whereabouts questionnaire. Recent studies suggest that mothers
and activities ("monitoring") actually comes from their and fathers can have different levels of knowledge
own active efforts, as the term monitoring implies. under certain conditions (e.g., Crouter, Helms-Erik-
We look at three potential sources of information- son, Updegraff, & McHale, 1999). This is an important
child disclosure, parental solicitation, and parental issue, but we cannot address it in this study because
control-and ask which of these explains the largest we cannot compare mothers and fathers in the same
portion of the variance in "monitoring" (parents' families. In our study, according to both parents' and
knowledge). The second question concerns the nega- children's reports, parental knowledge did not de-
tive association between monitoring and normbreak- pend upon the sex of the parent who responded.
ing behavior that so many studies have reported. In one of these communities, 14-year-olds from a
These studies most often conclude that parents' con- different cohort (N = 36) served as a pilot sample for
trol and surveillance efforts prevent adolescents from a subsequent study. They answered the questions that
getting into trouble. But is this a valid conclusion? We were used in this study on two occasions, 2 months
answer this by looking at which of the three potential apart, and their responses were used to calculate the
sources of parents' knowledge is most strongly re- test-retest reliabilities that we report for these measures.
lated to normbreaking behavior. For each of these Even though the response rate among parents was
questions, we test for possible moderating effects of high, those who responded might have been a biased
gender and the child's misbehavior to determine sample. To examine a possible selection effect, we
whether our findings are generalizable or apply only compared the children whose parents returned the
to children with certain characteristics. questionnaire (n = 539) with those whose parents did
not (n = 164) on all child-reported parental "monitor-
ing" measures and measures of normbreaking and po-
METHOD lice contact (see following description). The children
whose parents returned the questionnaire did
fer from the other children on normbreakin
Participants were 14-year-old youths from seven contact, parental solicitation, or
mid-Sweden communities, and their parents. The reg- did, however, report somewh
istered crime rate for youngsters in these communi- itoring," p < .05, and parental
ties is higher than the national average but somewhat
lower than for the metropolitan areas inMeasures Sweden. The
participants represent the whole range of socioeco-
nomic backgrounds in the communities. As is the case Parental "monitoring." In keeping with the m
for the whole country, 91% of the fathers and 80% of toring literature, we have operationalized "m
the mothers had at least part time employment (6% ing" as parents' knowledge of the child's
of the fathers and 7% of the mothers were unem- abouts, activities, and associations. Using
ployed). Seventy-six percent of the youngsters lived Likert scales, children answered nine questions
with both biological parents. their parents' knowledge. The questions were
Students in all 32 8th-grade classes in these com- your parents: know what you do during yo
munities were asked to join the study (N = 763). They time? know who you have as friends dur
took part in the study unless their parents returned a free time? usually know what type of homewo
form stating that they did not want their child to par- have? know what you spend your money on?
ticipate (10 parents returned this form). Neither par- know when you have an exam or paper due at
ents nor children were paid for their participation. Of know how you do in different subjects at scho
763 students, 703 (92%) were present on the day of the where you go when you are out with friends
data collection and answered the questionnaires. normally know where you go and what you d
Another questionnaire was sent home to each school?" and "In the last month, have your p
child's biological parent or legal guardian in the ever had no idea of where you were at nigh
home where the child lived during the school week. ents answered the same questions, with onl
Parents were asked to return the completed question- changes in wording where necessary (e.g., "Do
naire by mail, and 76% did so. In 71.4% of cases, know what your child does during his or h
mothers filled out the questionnaire alone, in 14.4% of time? know who your child has as friends du
cases fathers filled it out alone, in 12.9% of cases, or her free time? ..."). Means were calculated
mothers and fathers worked together, and in 1.3% of child-report items (oL reliability = .86) and pa
cases, a guardian other than a parent filled out the report items (aL reliability = .89). The test-retest

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Stattin and Kerr 1075

ability for child-reported "monitoring" was substan- wording. The a reliabilities were .82 an
tial, r(36) = .83. youths' reports and parents' reports, respectively. The
Child disclosure. Our child disclosure measure 2-month test-retest reliability for child-rep
comprised five items. The children's questions were, rental control was high, r(33) = .86.
"Do you spontaneously tell your parents about your Normbreaking. Our normbreaking meas
friends (which friends you hang out with and how they prised nine items. Youths answered these
think and feel about various things)?" "How often do about their behavior over the past year: "Ha
you usually want to tell your parents about school drunk beer, liquor, or wine to the point
(how each subject is going; your relationships with drunk?" "Have you tried hashish, cannabi
teachers)?" "Do you keep a lot of secrets from your juana?" "Have you pilfered from school?"
parents about what you do during your free time?" purposely vandalized or taken part in v
"Do you hide a lot from your parents about what you something that did not belong to you such as
do during nights and weekends?" and "Do you like display, car, telephone booth, bank, or garden?
to tell your parents about what you did and where you taken items from a mall, store, or n
you went during the evening?" Parents answered the without paying?" "Have you taken mo
same questions, with only minor changes in wording home?" "Have you bullied someone or togeth
where necessary. The a reliabilities were .84 for par- others mobbed or bullied other student
ents' reports and .81 for children's reports. Child- nored, made fun of, or teased)?" "Have y
reported disclosure was highly reliable, according to part of a physical fight?" "Have you been cau
the 2-month test-retest correlation, r(34) = .87. the police?" Also, parents reported wheth
Parental solicitation. Five items were averaged to thought their child had done any of these thi
form the parental solicitation measure. The children's a reliabilities for normbreaking were .79 an
items were, "How often do your parents talk with youths' and parents' reports, respectively
your friends when they come over to your house?" of the analyses, the single item asking wheth
"How often do your parents ask you about what hap- had been caught by the police over the past
pened during your free time?" "During the past used as a narrower measure of normbreaki
month, how often have your parents initiated a con- Parent-child relationships. Children answere
versation with you about your free time?" "When did questions about the quality of their relationsh
your parents last have extra time to sit down and lis- their mothers: "How often do you feel disa
ten to you when you talk about what happened dur- with your mother?" "How well do you
ing your free time?" and "How often do your parents mother understand each other?" "Do you w
ask you to sit and tell them what happened at school your mother was different?" "Do you and you
on a regular school day?" Parents answered the same quarrel and fight with each other?" "How
questions, with slight changes in wording where nec- you feel proud of your mother?" "Do you a
essary. The a reliabilities were .77 and .75 for youth- mother the way she is?" "How often do you
reported and parent-reported solicitation, respectively. gry or irritated by your mother?" and "D
Child-reported solicitation was highly reliable, accord- mother support and encourage you?" They
ing to the 2-month test-retest correlation, r(35) = .82. the same questions about their fathers. The
Parental control. Our parental control measure were reflected, when necessary, so that hig
comprised six items. Youths answered: "Must you indicated more positive relationships. The
have your parents' permission before you go out dur- were aggregated by parent first and th
ing the weeknights?" "If you go out on a Saturday parent-child relationship variable was f
evening, must you inform your parents beforehand taking the mean of the mother-child and fat
about who will be along as well as where you will be relationship variables. For children of single
going?" "If you have been out past curfew, do your the variable for the one parent was used. The
parents require that you explain why and tell who ity calculated on mother- and father-relations
you were with?" "Do your parents demand that they combined, was .89. The test-retest corre
know where you are in the evenings, who you are moderately high, r(33) = .75.
going to be with, and what you are going to do?" Family closeness. Parents completed the
"Must you ask your parents before you can make Family Climate Scale (Hanson, 1989). They
plans with friends about what you will do on a Satur- sented with 85 adjectives, which they
day night?" and "Do your parents require that you either appropriate or inappropriate for describ
tell them how you spend your money?" Parents an- own family climate. We used the "closen
swered the same questions, with minor changes in which consists of 18 adjectives: happy, war

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1076 Child Development

easy, harmonious, gentle, loving, natural, safe, kind, Table 1 Mean Scores as a Function of Gender For All Variables
meaningful, secure, considerate, pleasant, friendly, Used in the Study
calm, praising, humble. The psychometric properties Girls Boys t
of this measure have been reported previously (Han-
son, 1989). Children's reports
Skewness of some measures. Note that the distribu-
tions of parent-reported "monitoring" and child-
Parental solicitation .15(.71) -.15 (.71) 5.45***
reported normbreaking were somewhat skewed, Parental control .08 (.74) -.08
skewness = -2.31 and 2.02 for monitoring and Parent-child relationship -.09(.68)
normbreaking, respectively. Our analyses involving Normbreaking -.03 (.62) .
these measures have been done with the basic, un- Police contact 1.09 (.35) 1.12 (.38) -.76
transformed data. However, we have also trans- Parent's reports
formed these variables by taking the natural loga- Parental monitoring .01 (.79) -.01 (.67) .25
rithms. Analyses using the transformed variables Child disclosure .13(.75) -.11 (.78) 3.74**
Parental solicitation .03 (.69) -.02 (.72) .73
yielded results that were almost identical to the orig- Parental control -.04 (.67)
inal analyses. (Small differences appeared only on the Normbreaking -.02 (.49
third decimal place.) This result was probably due to
the large sample size. Note: Standardized scores, except for police contact, wh
from 1-4. Standard deviations are given in parentheses.
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
Procedure

The children filled out the questionnaires during lar, girls were more likely than boys to report taki
regular school hours, and they were assured of the money from home, t(673.06) = 2.1, p = .04, and
confidentiality of their answers. They were informed were marginally more likely to report drinking
that their parents would answer similar questions. hol, t(686) = 1.7, p = .08. Boys, on the other ha
Research assistants administered the questionnaires were more likely to report vandalizing proper
at the schools. Teachers were not present. Parents re- t(520.47) = -5.1, p < .001, and fighting, t(596.
sponded by filling out and mailing in a questionnaire. -4.0, p < .001.
They were informed that their children had answered For this study, however, the pertinent question
similar questions at school. not whether parents monitor, control, or solicit in
mation from girls more than boys, or whether girls
disclose more than boys. Rather, the question is
RESULTS whether gender moderates the relations among these
Gender Differences variables such that our reinterpretation of m
would apply to one sex more than the other. The
Mean level differences between boys and girls on fore, for each of our major findings, we
some of the variables appear in Table 1 along with for gender interactions to determin
t-tests of the differences. As shown in the table, there findings apply to one sex more than th
are no gender differences in parental "monitoring" as
reported by either children or parents. According to
both children's and parents' reports, however, girls What Does "Monitoring" Represent?
freely disclose more than boys to their parents. Par- To discover what "monitoring" rea
ents solicit more information from girls than boys, ac- we first examined the correlations l
cording to children but not parents, and although reported and parent-reported "monito
girls report being controlled more than boys, parents knowledge) with the three hypothesize
report controlling boys more than girls. But the actual information: child disclosure, parenta
differences in control are small. Boys report having and parental control. These relations are
better relationships than girls do with their parents. Table 2 along with the intercorrelations
Finally, boys and girls are similar on normbreaking sources of information. According to ch
and police contact, but gender differences did appear each of the three sources correlated sig
on some of the individual normbreaking items. Girls "monitoring," r(692) = .66, p < .001, r(68
were higher than boys on some and boys were higher .001, and r(684) = .41, p < .001 for child
than girls on others. This probably accounts for the rental solicitation, and parental control,
gender similarity on the scale as a whole. In particu- but the correlation between child

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Stattin and Kerr 1077

Table 2 Intercorrelations Among "Monitoring" (Parents' Knowledge) and Three Hypothesized

Sources of Knowledge

Child Parental Parental Parental

Disclosure Solicitation Control Monitoring

Child disclosure [.45***] .55*** .36*** .66***

(537) (685) (681) (692)
Parental solicitation .46*** [.33***] .43*** .42***
(571) (526) (682) (688)
Parental control .12** .20*** [.30***] .41***
(588) (560) (508) (684)
Parental monitoring .63*** .43*** .28*** [.38***]
(574) (575) (561) (537)

Note: Degrees of freedom are in parentheses. C

the diagonal. Correlations between parents' and
**p < .01; ***p < .001.

"monitoring" was significantly stronger

largest correlation, z = 6.4, p < .001. Using
reported measures, the results were almos
Again, all of the correlations were statisti
cant, r(574) = .63, p < .001, r(575) = .43, p <
r(561) = .28, p < .001 for child disclosure, p
licitation, and parental control, respective
correlation between child disclosure and
ing" was significantly stronger than the ne
relation, z = 4.8, p < .001. Note, further, th
ential links to monitoring are not due to d
skewness. All measures of disclosure, solici
control had distributions that were clos
skewness statistics = -.23, .18, and .20 for
ports and -.89, -.59, and -.59 for parent'
disclosure, solicitation, and control, res
As shown in Table 2, in addition to the fa
they are all related to "monitoring," the i
sources are all significantly, positively inte
Within parents' and children's reports, chil
and parental solicitation were the most hig
related and child disclosure and parenta
the least. In addition, note that parents an
cents agreed substantially about these aspec
relationships. All correlations between par
adolescents' reports were significant at or
.001 level, as shown on the diagonal in Tab
ents and adolescents agreed most on child d
r(537) = .45, less on "monitoring," r(537
parental solicitation, r(526) = .33, and least
tal control, r(508) = .30. Parents and childr
then, that parents' information comes from
ous child disclosure and parents' active eff
that more of it comes from child disclosu
because these sources of information are
correlated, the question is what they each
independently. "monitoring" are the same for boys and girls.

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1078 Child Development

Table 3 Simultaneous and Heirarchical Regression Analyses tested for interactions between the information
Predicting "Monitoring" (Parental Knowledge) from Potential sources and dichotomized measures of children's
Information Sources and Child Sex problem behavior: (1) hanging out on the streets in
Child Report Parent Report the evening (seldom = once a month or less, n = 518;
often = once a week or more, n = 168) and (2) norm-
aR2 AR2 breaking (low = lower than .5 SD on the normbreak-
Simultaneous inclusion ing behavior scale, n = 553; high = .5 SD or higher on
Disclosure .64*** .59*** the normbreaking scale, n = 143). As shown in Table
Solicitation .03 .15** 4, each of these possible moderators are indepen-
Control .22*** .19*** dently linked to parents' knowledge ("monitoring").
Sex .04 .05 However, there is little evidence that they moderate
Disclosure x Sex -.07 -.07 the relations between child disclosure and "monitor-
Solicitation x Sex -.01 .00
Control x Sex -.02 .49*** -.02 .44*** ing." Most of the interaction-term slopes are near zero
Stepwise inclusion and nonsignificant, and child disclosure is the stron-
Model 1 gest predictor in every model, which indicates that
Disclosure .66*** .44*** .62*** .38*** whether the chil
Model 2 most of their knowledge from the child's free disclo-
Solicitation & sure. There is one weakly significant interaction-the
Control added 03*** .05*** Disclosure x Hanging Out interaction for child-
** p < .01; ***p < .001. reported measures. We plotted the interaction by solv
ing the regression equation for high and low child
disclosure among those who were hanging out often
and seldom. This plot revealed that for children who
Once children have freely disclosed information often hung out on the streets in the evening, low dis-
about their whereabouts and activities, how much ad- closure of information was linked to particularly low
ditional information will parents get from their own levels of parental knowledge ("monitoring"). Bu
active efforts? To answer this, we entered child disclo- high disclosure was still linked to high levels of parent
sure first in a regression model predicting "monitor- knowledge ("monitoring"). Thus, among children who
ing" and then added parental solicitation and control often hang out on the streets, child disclosure is an even
to the model. The results appear in the lower portion more important source of parental knowledge.
of Table 3. By itself, child disclosure explains a substan-
tial proportion of the variance in "monitoring" (44%
from the children's points of view and 38% from the par-
ents' points of view). Adding the other two sources to "Monitoring" has been linked in the literature t
the model produces a statistically significant, but small, lower incidences of delinquency, smoking, drug use,
increase in the variance explained (3% for children's re- and other normbreaking behaviors, and it is in thi
ports and 5% for parents' reports). These results suggest study, as well, r(693) = -.50, p < .001 and r(534) =
that children freely tell their parents a large proportion -.34, p < .001 for bivariate correlations linking child
of what their parents know about their whereabouts reported normbreaking with child-reported and parent-
and activities. Parents' efforts to gain information reli- reported "monitoring," respectively. Additionally, eac
ably produce more, but only a small amount more. In of the child-reported sources of information corre-
summary, then, when "monitoring" is recognized as lated significantly with normbreaking, r(688) = -.39,
knowledge and we ask where parents have gotten that p < .001, r(685) = -.13, p < .001, and r(680) = -.24
knowledge, we find that tracking or surveillance efforts, p < .001 for disclosure, solicitation, and control, re
which are implied by the term monitoring and its previ- spectively. Of the parent-reported sources, only chil
ous interpretations, are less important than children's disclosure correlated significantly with normbreak-
spontaneous sharing of information, ing, r(530) = -.27, p < .001, r(531) = -.01, ns, and
This finding could, conceivably, appear because r(517) = -.06, ns, for disclosure, solicitation, and con
disclosure is highly important among children who trol, respectively.
have nothing to hide from their parents, even though The question, however, is which source of informa-
it may not be among those who have a lot to hide. In tion is most important in predicting normbreaking,
other words, the child's behavior might interact with independent of the others. As shown in Table 5, the
these sources to predict parent's knowledge ("moni- answer, again, is child disclosure. Higher levels o
toring"). Further analyses, however, suggest not. We child disclosure correspond to lower levels of norm-

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Stattin and Kerr 1079

Table 4 Simultaneous Regression Analyses Predicting Moni- Table 5 Simultaneous Regression Analyses Predic
toring (Parental Knowledge) from Potential Information dren's Self-Reported Normbreaking from Chil
Sources and Children's Behavior Sources of Parents' Information

Child Report Parent Report Child-Reported Parent-Reported

Sources Sources
3 R2 I R2
P R2 R2
Hanging out on the
streets in the eveninga Predictors of normbreaking
Disclosure .49*** .45*** Disclosure -.42*** - .38***
Solicitation .07 .16*** Solicitation .18*** .19***
Control .19*** .13*** Control -.17*** .19*** - .01 .12***
Hanging out -.14*** -.15*** Test of moderating effects
Disclosure x Hanging Out .09* .01 of gender
Solicitation X Hanging Out -.05 .06 Disclosure -.39*** -.43***
Control x Hanging Out -.00 .49*** .08 .45*** Solicitation .14* .20**
Child's normbreakingb Control -.19*** -.00
Disclosure .50*** .43*** Sex .01 -.02
Solicitation .04 .19*** Disclosure x Sex -.05 .06
Control .15*** .15*** Solicitation x Sex .06 .00
Normbreaking -.23*** - .17*** Control X Sex .02 .19*** -.02 .13***
Disclosure x Normbreaking .00 .04
Solicitation X Normbreaking .02 .00 * p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
Control X Normbreaking .04 .53*** .06 .45***

a Seldom = once a month or less (n = 518); often = once a week or logistic regression analysis revealed that ch
more (n = 168). sure predicted negatively b = -.81, Wald statistic =
b Low = lower than .5 SD on the normbreaking scale (n = 553); sure predicted negatively, b -.81, Wald statistic
high = .5 SD or higher on the normbreaking scale (n = 143). 31.45, p < .001, parental solicitation predicted posi-
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001. tively, b = .41, Wald statistic = 5.85, p < .05, and pa-
rental control was nonsignificant, b = -.15, Wald sta-
tistic = 0.99, p = ns.
breaking, independent of parental solicitation and The lower portion of Table 5 reveals, further, that
control. The standardized slopes for disclosure in these findings apply to both boys and girls. Sex does
both child- and parent-report models are more than not interact with any of the sources of parental infor-
twice as large as the next largest slopes. For control mation in predicting normbreaking.
and solicitation, on the other hand, the independent Again, the child's behavior might moderate these
connections to normbreaking are less clear and con- relations. Perhaps child disclosure is not the most im-
sistent. Independent of disclosure and solicitation, portant link to lower normbreaking among children
child-reported parental control is linked to lower who are hanging out on the streets in the evening.
normbreaking but parent-reported control is not. The Perhaps, for those children, solicitation or control be-
findings concerning parental solicitation run counter comes more important than child disclosure as predic-
to expectations. With child disclosure and parental tors of lower normbreaking. To test this, we included
control held constant, parental solicitation is linked to the dichotomized variable for the child's hanging out
higher, not lower, normbreaking. The more parents on the streets in the evening and its interactions with
ask their children about their activities, the more the sources of information. These results appear in
normbreaking their children tend to do. Note, further, Table 6. As expected, hanging out on the streets in the
that these results hold when parent-reported sources evening is strongly linked to normbreaking. Accord-
are used to predict parent-reported normbreaking, ing to children's reports of disclosure, solicitation,
which is highly skewed because most parents report and control, shown in the left-hand column of Table 6,
no normbreaking, P = -.37, p < .001, P = .18, p < .01, child disclosure is strongly linked to lower norm-
and p = .00, ns for disclosure, solicitation, and control, breaking, and that link does not depend on whether
respectively. Because of a skewed distribution of pa- the child is hanging out on the streets in the evening.
rental reports of children's normbreaking, we dichot- In this model, there is also a weak Control x Hanging
omized the measure of child normbreaking into two Out interaction. A plot of four points predicted by the
groups: one in which parents reported no norm viola- regression equation (high and low control; hanging
tions or just minor ones (75.1%) and another in which out often and seldom) revealed that low control was
parents reported several norm violations (24.9%). A mainly associated with higher normbreaking among

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1080 Child Development

Table 6 Regression Analyses Predicting Child-Reported Norm- often been claimed but rather because child disclo-
breaking from Sources of Parental Information and the Child's sure is heavily represented in "monitoring," and chil-
Behavior dren who talk openly with their parents tend to com-
Child-Reported Parent-Reported mit fewer antisocial acts. However, because studies
Sources Sources that find links between "monitoring" and antisocial
behavior often conclude that surveillance is the im-
ModelP
SR2 Model
R2 portant parental activity, we asked, finally, whether
parents' active efforts added
Disclosure -.31*** -.21*** the prediction of normbreaking, over and above child
Solicitation .11* .08 disclosure. To answer this, we regressed normbreaking
Control -.07 -.03 on child disclosure first and then added parental so-
Hanging outa .30*** .35*** licitation and control to the model. The resu
Disclosure x Hanging Out -.03 -.16*
Solicitation x Hanging Out .06 .15** gested that parents' active efforts have a reliable but
Control x Hanging Out -.11* .29*** .02 .26*** small effect. Child disclosure, by itself, sign
predicted less normbreaking, R2 = .15, p < .01. Addin
a Seldom = once a month or less (n = 518); often = once a week or parental solicitation and control to the m
more (n = 168). duced a statistically significant but small increase in
*p < .05; **p < .01; *** p < .001. the variance explained, R2 change = .03, p < .
Note that the three hypothesized sources of infor-
children who often hung out on the streets in the mation together were approximately equal to
evening. For those who seldom did, parental control toring" as predictors of normbreaking. For pare
was less linked to normbreaking. However, even reports, "monitoring" accounted for 12% of t
though parental control is associated with lower norm- ance in normbreaking; the three sources acco
breaking under some circumstances, the link between for 10%. The analogous figures for children's r
this control interaction and normbreaking is only a were 25% and 18%. The correlations within
third as large as the main effect of child disclosure, pairs were not significantly different from each
According to parents' reports, shown in the right- z = 0.88 and 1.72, respectively.
hand column of Table 6, child disclosure is the source Police contact. Until now, we have used a
of parental information that is most closely linked to measure of normbreaking behavior that i
normbreaking, but the interaction shows that the as- norm violations at home, at school, and during
sociation is moderated by the child's behavior. A plot sure time. We look, now, at a narrower measur
of the interaction revealed that child disclosure was ing been in trouble with the police during
even more strongly connected to normbreaking among year. According to the self-reports of the 14-y
children who often hung out on the streets in the children, 8.8% had been caught by the police for
evening than among those who seldom did. For chil- offense during the past year, and according to t
dren who hung out often, the less they disclosed to ents and the children themselves, parents o
their parents, the more likely they were to be breaking children knew less about their daily activities t
norms, and their normbreaking was more extreme parents of the other children. Child-reported "m
than that of those children who seldom hung out on toring" was lower among the children who said
the streets. In addition, according to parents' reports had been caught by the police, t(692) = 6.13, p <
in Table 6, solicitation interacts with hanging out to Mean z-scores on "monitoring" were -.50 (S
predict normbreaking. A plot of this interaction re- and .05 (SD = .67) for those who had been caught
vealed that higher levels of solicitation were linked to the police and those who had not, respectively
higher levels of normbreaking, but this was much ent-reported "monitoring" was also lower fo
more true when children often hung out on the streets who had had police contact, t(533) = 2.83, p <
in the evening. Among parents of those children, so- Mean z-scores were -.27 (SD = .48) and .05 (SD =
licitation is probably a reaction to normbreaking for those who had been caught by the polic
rather than an antecedent (i.e., parents' attempts to those who had not, respectively.
get information about what their children are doing "Monitoring" (parents' knowledge) is rel
when they are often out in the evenings and getting police contact, but which source of parents' kno
into trouble), edge is most closely related? The answer is child dis-
These findings suggest that the link between closure, just as it was for the broader normb
"monitoring" and antisocial behavior exists not be- measure. In a logistic regression analysis pr
cause surveillance reduces antisocial behavior as has police contact from the child's reported di

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Stattin and Kerr 1081

parental solicitation, and parental control, child dis- ond step. Parent-child relationships was a significant
closure was most important, b = -.62, Wald statis- predictor of normbreaking when entered alone, P =
tic = 8.25, p < .01. Parental control was also a signifi- -.25, p < .001. However, each of the child-reported
cant predictor, b = -.50, Wald statistic = 4.82, p < .05, sources still significantly predicted normbreaking in-
but parental solicitation was not, b = .18, Wald statis- dependent of our parent-child relationship measure,
tic = 0.57, ns. p = -.35, p < .001, P = -.09, p < .05, and P = -.25,
According to parents' reports, 5.7 % of the children p < .001, for child disc
had been caught by the police during the past year, and parental control, res
and again, the parents of these children knew less of the variables were
about their activities, according to both sources. for their independent c
Child-reported "monitoring" was lower among these explained around twi
children, t(27.42) = 3.23, p < .01. Mean z-scores on tion, control, or parent
"monitoring" were -.51 (SD = .91) and .07 (SD = .65) p < .001, P = .17, p < .0
for those who had been caught by the police and those -.13, p < .001, for disclo
who had not, respectively. Parent-reported "monitor- parent-child relationship
ing" was also lower, t(573) = 2.40, p < .05. Mean for gender effects by i
z-scores were -.30 (SD = .81) and .02 (SD = .72) for parent-child relations
those who had been caught by the police and those sources, sex, the interacti
who had not, respectively. ships with sex, and interactions of the information
Furthermore, when the three sources of informa- sources with sex. Neither sex nor any of the interac-
tion were used to predict parent-reported police con- tions was significant in this model.
tact, child disclosure was the only significant predic- Similar results were found using the second
tor, b = -.80, Wald statistic = 11.77, p < .01. In short, measure--parents' judgments of family closeness
independent of whether the outcome measure is which were taken for a subset of the sample (n = 154
broad (normbreaking) or narrow (police contact) or Family closeness was a significant predictor of norm-
whether the children or the parents report on police breaking when entered alone, P = -.23, p < .01; how-
contact, child disclosure emerges as the most impor- ever, child disclosure and parental control signifi
tant predictor. cantly predicted normbreaking, over and above the
Is child disclosure just a proxy for good parent-child re- family closeness measure, P = -.45, p <
lationships? One could argue that the link between -.34, p < .001, for child disclosure and par
child disclosure and normbreaking is primarily due trol, respectively. In this limited sample, pare
to the fact that children who confide in their parents licitation was marginally significant, 1 = -.
have close emotional bonds with their parents, and it .08. Again, when all of the variables were en
is the emotional bonds that makes them unlikely to be multaneously, child disclosure explained m
involved in normbreaking. We used two different in- twice as much variance as solicitation, c
dicators of parent-child relationships: one from the family closeness, P = -.47, p < .001, P = .2
children's perspectives (parent-child relationships) p = -.24, p < .01, and P = -.15, p < .05, for
and one from the parents' perspectives (family close- solicitation, control, and family closeness, res
ness). The family closeness measure was taken on a We find no evidence, then, that child disc
subset of the sample (n = 154). These two measures normbreaking are related only because ad
were positively correlated, r(154) = .22, p < .01. In ad- who are emotionally close to their parents w
dition, children's reports of mother-child relation- their experiences and also refrain from norm
ships were positively correlated with their reports of
father-child relationships, r(662) = .47, p < .001, and
the pattern of results was the same when mother- and DISCUSSION
father-child relationships were examined separately.
Beginning with parent-child relationships, we In this study we argued that parental "moni
asked whether any of these variables would still appear really knowledge that parents have about
as predictors of normbreaking after controlling for dren's activities outside the home and that th
children's reports of the parent-child relationship, edge comes partly from the parents' own effort
With normbreaking as the dependent variable in a re- out what their children are doing (solicitati
gression model, we forced parent-child relationships control) and partly from the child's spontane
in on the first step and then added child disclosure, willing divulgence of information (child discl
parental solicitation, and parental control on the sec- These three knowledge sources accounted for

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1082 Child Development

half of the variance in our "monitoring" measure for time activities to prevent risky sexual behavior. How-
both children's and parents' reports. ever, these conclusions are not supported by the
In contrast to the parenting skills or direct supervi- present study. They were based on an inferential leap:
sion interpretation of monitoring that dominates the that parental knowledge must have come from surveil-
literature (Dishion & McMahon, 1998; Snyder & lance and direct control. The present study suggests
Patterson, 1987), however, this study suggests that otherwise. Researchers, therefore, have likely drawn
"monitoring" is not what the term implies: a parental premature conclusions from monitoring findings.
activity. It is more a child's activity. Both children's Researchers have also used "monitoring" measures
and parents' reports of "monitoring" were best ex- such as Patterson and Stouthamer-Loeber's (1984)
plained as children's voluntary descriptions of their five-item questionnaire to build models to explain how
free-time activities. parents influence their children's antisocial behavior.
Parents want to prevent antisocial behavior in their For example, Barber (1996) recently disting
children or to stop it if it has begun. In the criminolog- oretically between psychological and beh
ical literature, parents of delinquents have been char- trol. He argued that they would be differe
acterized as poor and inconsistent monitors of their to internalizing and externalizing behavior
children's activities (Patterson & Stouthamer-Loeber, logical control should create internalizing
1984; Snyder & Patterson, 1987). In this study, as in and behavioral control should prevent
previous studies, poor parental "monitoring" was problems, and, indeed, he found that beh
linked to more normbreaking behavior. However, trol was negatively related to delinquenc
when we asked which of the three potential sources sure of behavioral control, however, he use
of information best explained the child's normbreak- "monitoring" scale that measured par
ing behavior, we found that child disclosure was the edge, the rationale being that "monitoring
strongest predictor. This was true both for children's to be a particularly reliable and powerfu
and parents' reports and for the broad normbreaking family management and regulation" (p. 330
measure as well as for police contact. although the "monitoring" scale taps parent
Parental monitoring, defined as direct control of the ness of their children's whereabouts, it c
child's behavior, was rejected early on by criminolo- sumed to represent parents' behaviora
gists as an effective proactive strategy for parents (see control the child. The alternative interpr
Wells & Rankin, 1988, for a review). The argument was children with externalizing problem
that adolescents spend so much of their free time at normbreaking behavior from their parent
places where parents are not present that parents can- other children, which results in their par
not control their children's behavior directly (Nye, less-is more likely in light of our findings.
1958). Thereafter, a sizable body of research on parental At least two plausible theoretical expla
"monitoring" that challenged the early view emerged. account for our main finding: that high
Many studies showed that "monitoring" did play an were lower on normbreaking. One is a
important role in constraining antisocial behavior, and explanation. Perhaps some children are j
several review studies came to that conclusion (Loeber mentally prone to be agreeable, conventi
& Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986; Snyder & Patterson, 1987). who have nothing to hide from their pare
Today, the idea that monitoring measures reflect communicate willingly and openly. In this
parents' efforts to control and manage their children is temperament would be a third variable
widespread (see Dishion & McMahon, 1998; Snyder & good behavior and also causes children
Patterson, 1987). Authors argue that more and stronger their parents, but there might be no causa
surveillance by parents could reduce antisocial behav- disclosure and good behavior at all. Howev
ior in children (Fletcher et al., 1995; Patterson & was all that was going on in our data, chi
Stouthamer-Loeber, 1984; Romer et al., 1994; Snyder & should not have been important among c
Patterson, 1987; Weintraub & Gold, 1991). Patterson hung out on the streets in the evening
and Stouthamer-Loeber (1984) suggested that juvenile Clearly, a richer explanation is needed.
delinquents' parents are "indifferent trackers of their Another explanation is that parent
sons' whereabouts" (p. 1305). Fletcher et al. (1995) con- something to build up the kinds of relat
cluded that strong parental "monitoring" could both facilitate communication, and those relatio
deter adolescents from engaging in drug use in the first what prevent bad behavior. This explana
place and reduce the risks of further use, and Romer et ceptually linked to early formulations of
al. (1994) suggested that parents of friendship groups ory that take the child's attachment to th
should join together to monitor their children's free- the crucial aspect of behavioral control (Hir

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Stattin and Kerr 1083

The basic idea is that the child's emotional bond to the Seen in this light, parental monitoring is a re
parents prevents the child from doing anything that property." This discussion of child disclosure
might compromise the relationship-anything of the parent-child relationship might facilitate
which parents might disapprove or that might em- in the monitoring literature (for another exce
barrass them. Consistent with this, attachment mea- Crouter et al., 1999). Typically, the parent-ch
sures have been shown to be important predictors of tionship is discussed as a factor that determi
delinquency (e.g., Benda & Whiteside, 1995; Sokol- parents will do to monitor their children (e.g., D
Katz, Dunham, & Zimmerman, 1997). Attachment McMahon, 1998) and the child's active role is
might be a third variable that causes children to want This study leaves certain questions to be ans
to tell their parents all about their lives and also keeps future research. The cross-sectional design of
them from getting into trouble, thus explaining both precludes any detailed insights into causal con
disclosure itself and the link between disclosure and Only longitudinal studies will enable us to ide
antisocial behavior. Our data are not supportive of origins of child disclosure or to say anything d
this idea, however. Child disclosure remains the about whether parents' knowledge actually p
strongest predictor of normbreaking, even after con- problems. Future studies should also include
trolling for parent- and child-rated indicators of sons of mothers and fathers within the same fa
parent-child relationships. cause recent evidence suggests that their knowledge
A limitation of both of these views is that they pos- may differ under certain circumstances (Crouter et al.
tulate directional effects that are probably too simplis- 1999). This particular area of research would be espe-
tic. Socialization is not a unidirectional process (Mac- cially interesting for future Swedish studies because
coby & Martin, 1983; Magnusson & Stattin, 1998). Swedish law encourages and facilitates fathers' involve-
Developmental psychology has moved from a "top- ment more than in the United States, where differences
down" view of parenting to a more interactive view of in parental knowledge have been found.
parent-child processes that recognizes the necessity of The present study has a number of strengths, how-
reciprocity, cooperation, coordination, and coregula- ever. One is the large sample size and the high re
tion. A good parent-child relationship, which should sponse rates from both children and parents. Another
operate preventively, should be a two-way process, in- is that the study deals with both parents' and chil-
cluding both the parents' solicitation of knowledge dren's reports, which do not overlap precisely bu
and control of their children's behavior and the chil- which nonetheless reveal the same overall pictur
dren's willingness to make their parents part of their about parents' knowledge, where it comes from, and
lives. A parent-child relationship that protects chil- how these factors are connected to normbreaking. This
dren from antisocial behavior is unlikely to be built on study challenges the common assumption of what pa-
the parents' or the children's actions alone. For in- rental monitoring is; it reveals that parents' direct con-
stance, parents' attempts to solicit information from an trol over children's behavior is not as important as th
unwilling child might have a limited effect on the youngsters' own voluntary disclosure of information
child's behavior. In fact, some youngsters might view about their lives. Thus, this study suggests that a bidi-
parental solicitation as an intrusion into their privacy rectional model of parent-child interactions is needed.
and a means for parents to control their behavior. Par- Our findings carry implications for future moni-
ents' well-meaning attempts to find out about their toring research and for parenting. In the future, re-
children's activities have to be matched by the chil- searchers should not use the term monitoring to refer
dren's willingness to reveal what they are doing, to measures of parental knowledge. Monitoring
where they are going, and whom they are with. A few should be reserved for measures that actually tap par-
times, this has been expressed in the monitoring litera- ents' active efforts. If parental knowledge is measured
ture (Crouter, et al., 1990; Weintraub & Gold, 1991). it should be labeled parental knowledge. We shoul
Crouter et al. (1990) defined monitoring as similar to recognize that parental knowledge is extremely im-
Pulkkinen's (1982, p. 656) child-center guidance and portant, for reasons which are as yet unknown. In fu-
emphasized the dual nature of the concept: "Parents ture criminological investigations, more effort should
who are good monitors have made the effort to estab- go toward identifying aspects of parent-child rela-
lish channels of communication with their child, and tionships that are associated with the child's disclo-
as a result of their relationship with the child, they are sure of information. A focus on the adolescent's poin
knowledgeable about the child's daily experiences. In of view is also needed. For example, one issue tha
order to be an effective monitor, however, parental in- has received little attention in the monitoring litera-
terest is not enough: A child must be willing to share ture is adolescents' trust in their parents-whether they
his or her experiences and activities with the parent. feel that their parents are willing to listen to them, are

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1084 Child Development

responsive, and would not ridicule or punish if they Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting
confided in them. Another issue is whether adoles- a neglected construct. Child Development, 67, 3296-3319.
cents and their friends develop common attitudes Benda, B. B., & Whiteside, L. (1995). Testing an integrated
and norms about how much they should confide in model of delinquency using LISREL. Journal of Social Sci-
their parents about their daily activities and experi- ence Research, 21, 1-32.
ences. These and other possible influences on child Biglan, A., Duncan, T. E., Ary, D. B., & Smolkowski, K.
(1995). Peer and parental influences on adolescent to-
disclosure should be investigated. bacco use. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 18, 315-330.
Concerning implications for parenting, general Cernkovich, S. A., & Giordano, P. C. (1987). Family relation-
advice to parents should be given cautiously. Parents ships and delinquency. Criminology, 24, 295-321.
normally use different socializing strategies simulta- Chassin, L., Pillow, D. R., Curran, P. J., Molina, B. S. G., &
neously and try to find a balance between them. Par- Barrera, M., Jr. (1993). Relation of parental alcoholism to
ents' awareness of their children's activities is cer- early adolescent substance use: A test of three mediating
tainly important for preventing negative behavior, mechanisms. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 3-19.
However, our results suggest that in addition to con- Cohen, D. A., & Rice, J. C. (1995). A parent-targeted inter-
trolling the child's whereabouts, parents should try to vention for adolescent substance use prevention: Les-
optimize conditions for the child to disclose informa- sons learned. Evaluation Review, 19, 159-180.
tion about his or her everyday experiences. Parental Crouter, A. C., Helms-Erikson, H., Updegraff, K., &
characteristics that have been associated with juve- McHale, S. M. (1999). Conditions underlying parents'
knowledge about children's daily lives in middle child-
nile delinquency, such as aggression; hostility; cruel, hood: Between- and within-family comparisons. Child
neglecting attitudes toward the child; negativism; and Development 70, 246-259.
permissiveness of aggression (see Snyder & Patterson, Crouter, A. C., MacDermid, S. M., McHale, S. M., & Perry-
1987, for a review) are all behaviors that would dis- Jenkins, M. (1990). Parental monitoring and perceptions
courage child disclosure. A more child-centered ap- of children's school performance and conduct in dual-
proach, which would result in a two-way dialogue, and single-earner families. Developmental Psychology, 26,
might encourage children to share their mental lives 649-657.
with their parents. Parents must be aware of how ad- Crouter, A. C., Manke, B. A., & McHale, S. M. (1995). The
olescents feel and think as they formulate their up- family context of gender intensification in early adoles-
bringing strategies. Hirschi (1969) suggested that the cence. Child Development, 66, 317-329.
parents' "psychological presence" in the child would Dishion, T. J., Capaldi, D., Spracklen, K. M., & Li, F. (1995).
keep the child from behaving badly, but that may not Peer ecology of male adolescent drug use: Developmental
Sthe childinprocesses in peer relations and psychopathology [Special
be achievable if the child's point of view and possible issue]. Development and Psychopathology, 7, 803-824.
reactions are not psychologically present in the parents Dishion, T. J., & McMahon, R. J. (1998). Parental monitoring
as they interact with their child. and the prevention of child and adolescent problem be-
havior: A conceptual and empirical formulation. Clinical
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Child and Family Psychology Review, 1, 61-75.
Flannery, D. J., Vazsonyi, A. T., Torquati, J., & Fridr
This research was supported by grants from the (1994). Ethnic and gender differences in
Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of olescent substance use. Journal of You
Research and the Swedish Council for Research in the 23, 195-213.
Humanities and Social Sciences. During the prepara- Fletcher, A. C., Darling, N., & Steinberg
tion of this manuscript, Margaret Kerr was supported monitoring and peer influences on a
by a grant from the Wenner-Grenska Samfundet. use. In J. McCord (Ed.), Coercion and P
Term Perspectives (pp. 259-271). Cambridge, MA:
bridge University Press.
AUTHOR ADDRESSES AND AFFILIATIONS Fridrich, A. H., & Flannery, D. J. (1995). T
Corresponding author: Hdkan Stattin, Department nicity and acculturation on early
of Psychology, University of Orebro, 701 82 Ore- quency. Journal of Child and Family S
bro, Sweden; e-mail: [email protected].
b roSweden; Hanson,
e-mil: hspsych maxsyholog . for K.diagnosis
family (1989). Family climate: An
[Familjeklimat. En
Margaret Kerr is also at the University of Orebro. familjediagnostik] (Report number
Department of Applied Psychology, Lund Universi
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