Longitudinal Relations Among Parental Monitoring Strategies, Knowledge, and Adolescent Delinquency in a Racially Diverse At-Risk Sample

Abstract

Parents raising youth in high-risk communities at times rely on active, involved monitoring strategies in order to increase both knowledge about youth activities and the likelihood that adolescents will abstain from problem behavior. Key monitoring literature suggests that some of these active monitoring strategies predict increases in adolescent problem behavior rather than protect against it. However, this literature has studied racially homogenous, low-risk samples, raising questions about generalizability. With a diverse sample of youth (N = 753; 58% male; 46% Black) and families living in high-risk neighborhoods, bidirectional longitudinal relations were examined among three aspects of monitoring (parental discussions of daily activities, parental curfew rules, and adolescent communication with parents), parental knowledge, and youth delinquency. Parental discussion of daily activities was the strongest predictor of parental knowledge, which negatively predicted delinquency. However, these aspects of monitoring did not predict later delinquency. Findings were consistent across gender and race/urbanicity. Results highlight the importance of active and involved parental monitoring strategies in contexts where they are most needed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful for the collaboration of the school districts that participated in the Fast Track Project and the hard work and dedication of the many staff members who implemented the project, collected evaluation data, and assisted with data management and analyses. We appreciate the collaboration of the Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, who developed the Fast Track Project, whose members in alphabetical order, include Karen L. Bierman, Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University; John D. Coie, Department of Psychology, Duke University; Kenneth A. Dodge, Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University; Mark T. Greenberg, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University; John E. Lochman, Department of Psychology, the University of Alabama; Robert J. McMahon, Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, and the Child & Family Research Institute; and Ellen E. Pinderhughes, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University.

FUNDING

This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grants R18 MH48043, R18 MH50951, R18 MH50952, R18 MH50953, and by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant 1 RC1 DA028248-01. The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention and NIDA provided support for Fast Track through a memorandum of agreement with the NIMH. This work was supported in part by Department of Education grant S184U30002, NIMH grants K05MH00797 and K05MH01027, and NIDA grants DA16903, DA015226, and DA017589. Additional support for the preparation of this work was provided by a LEEF B.C. Leadership Chair award, Child & Family Research Institute Investigator Salary and Investigator Establishment Awards and a Canada Foundation for Innovation award to Robert J. McMahon.

Notes

¹ A multi-informant approach is critical given the low concordance between parent–youth reports of monitoring (Lippold, Greenberg, & Feinberg; 2011; Pettit, Laird, Dodge, Bates, & Criss, 2001), and potential parent–youth report discrepancies stemming from stress- and poverty-related parent psychopathology and associated biased parent item responses (Hughes & Gullone, 2010).

² By design, the severity of behavior problems in the highest quintile of the normative sample was comparable to that observed in the high-risk control sample; thus, 79 children were considered part of both samples. They are excluded from the normative sample when studies combine both samples (e.g., McMahon, Witkiewitz, Kotler, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2010).

³ Constructs derived from the Supervision Questionnaire were based on dimensions reported in Loeber and colleagues (1998) and a confirmatory factor analysis supports their reliability and validity in this sample (Doyle & McCarty, 2001).

⁴ Cronbach’s alpha was commensurate with youth-report (α = .63) and parent-report (α = .64) subscales in Loeber et al. (1998) and can be attenuated by few subscale items (Cronbach, 1951).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grants R18 MH48043, R18 MH50951, R18 MH50952, R18 MH50953, and by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant 1 RC1 DA028248-01. The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention and NIDA provided support for Fast Track through a memorandum of agreement with the NIMH. This work was supported in part by Department of Education grant S184U30002, NIMH grants K05MH00797 and K05MH01027, and NIDA grants DA16903, DA015226, and DA017589. Additional support for the preparation of this work was provided by a LEEF B.C. Leadership Chair award, Child & Family Research Institute Investigator Salary and Investigator Establishment Awards and a Canada Foundation for Innovation award to Robert J. McMahon.