Abstract
Recent studies suggest that most of what parents know about their adolescent offspring’s whereabouts and companions is the result of youth disclosure, rather than information gained through active parental monitoring. This raises the possibility that parental knowledge is spuriously correlated with youth delinquency solely because the most delinquent youth disclose the least information to parents (because they have the most to hide). We tested this spurious association hypothesis using prospective data on offspring of a nationally representative sample of US women, controlling demographic and contextual covariates. In separate analyses, greater parental knowledge of their offspring’s peer associations at both 12–13 years and at 14–15 years was associated with lower odds of being in the top 1 standard deviation of youth-reported delinquency at 16–17 years, controlling for delinquency at the earlier ages. The extent to which parents set limits on activities with peers at 14–15 years did not mediate or moderate the association between parental knowledge and delinquency, but it did independently predict future delinquency among adolescents living in high-risk neighborhoods. This suggests that the association between parental knowledge and future delinquency is not solely spurious; rather parental knowledge and limit setting are both meaningful predictors of future delinquency.
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Notes
If early-adolescent parental knowledge does not predict late-adolescent delinquency when early-adolescent delinquency is controlled, the test would be inconclusive. Such a finding could mean that parental knowledge in early adolescence is no more than a reflection of the youth’s unwillingness to disclose to conceal delinquent activity and exerts no influence on delinquency. On the other hand, it could mean that early-adolescent parental knowledge has a direct causal influence on early-adolescent delinquency, but influences late-adolescent delinquency only indirectly through early-adolescent delinquency.
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Lahey, B.B., Van Hulle, C.A., D’Onofrio, B.M. et al. Is Parental Knowledge of their Adolescent Offspring’s Whereabouts and Peer Associations Spuriously Associated with Offspring Delinquency?. J Abnorm Child Psychol 36, 807–823 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-008-9214-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-008-9214-z