Structural relations between sources of parental knowledge, feelings of being overly controlled and risk behaviors in early adolescence

ABSTRACT

In this study, we have investigated parental knowledge and its sources, namely adolescent disclosure, parental control, and parental solicitation; and how they relate to adolescents’ feelings of being overly controlled, and to three types of adolescent risk behaviors, namely bullying, substance use, and delinquent behavior. This was studied in a sample of 1520 Swedish early adolescent boys and girls (M age = 13.0). A structural equation path model showed that adolescent disclosure and parental control were positively associated with parental knowledge, which in turn related to all three risk behaviors. Adolescent disclosure was related to lower levels of risk behaviors, while parental solicitation was linked to higher levels of adolescent engagement in risk behaviors, especially for boys, through feelings of being overly controlled. The findings support the idea of a functional role of open communication, as well as adequate levels of autonomy granting, for managing boys’ and girls’ risk behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental knowledge
• disclosure
• control
• adolescent autonomy
• gender

Acknowledgments

We are in gratitude to Ph.D. Lena Almquist, Mälardalen University, for giving useful comments to the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Sabina Kapetanovic http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2998-7289

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council (VR); Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE); Sweden’s Innovation Agency (VINNOVA); and The Swedish Research Council Formas under a combined grand (No. 259-2012-25). Additional contributions were granted from Säfstaholm Foundation (No. ST-2014-023), Sunnerdahl Disability Foundation (No. 40-14), and Futurum, Jönköping County (No. 2014/3821-271).