Parental Monitoring of Adolescents: How Does Parental Involvement Matter?

Parental monitoring is recognized as one of the most important factors in the adjustment of children and adolescents. Contemporary interpretations of parental monitoring emphasize the importance of parents knowing where their children and adolescents are, who they are with, and how they spend their time when unsupervised. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between parental monitoring and parental involvement, from the parents’ perspective. Additionally, the study seeks to explore indirect relations between parental involvement, and parental knowledge with sources of parental knowledge (adolescent self-disclosure, parental solicitation and parental control) as a mediating factor. The sample consisted of 216 parents (82.1% female). Data on parental involvement were collected using the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire and assessed using the Parental Monitoring Scale. The results indicate that parental gender and age, parental involvement, parental solicitation, child self-disclosure, and parental control account for 60.4% of the variance in parental knowledge. No direct link was found between parental involvement and parental knowledge, while the indirect effects of parental involvement on parental knowledge were found for paren tal solicitation (Z = 5.942; p < .001), and parental control (Z = 3.079; p < .01). The findings are discussed considering the significance of active parental involvement during adolescence.