Transitions and Changes during Adolescence

The adolescent years are a time of transition for both children and parents, which contributes to the need for adjustments in the parent– child relationship that are sometimes met with reluctance or conflict. Adolescents experience physical, emotional, and social changes that influence how they interact with others both directly and indirectly, and also shape their expectations for autonomy within the parent– child relationship. The onset of puberty includes a variety of physical and hormonal changes that can lead to emotional challenges and adjustments in social relationships (Kerig, Reference Kerig and Bornstein2019), including the parent–child relationship. Parent–child interactions may also be impacted by continued brain development during the adolescent years, as decision making, executive functioning, and impulse control are not yet fully developed (pre-frontal cortex) (Steinberg, Reference Steinberg2010). These changes, along with social shifts toward one’s peer group (Larson & Richards, Reference Larson and Richards1998), may result in increases in exploration and risk taking behaviors (Chen & Jacobson, Reference Chen and Jacobson2012) that lead to the need for adjustment in the parent– adolescent relationship.

According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, Reference Deci and Ryan2000), adolescents also experience an increased desire for autonomy, which is more than just a movement toward independence, but is also adolescents’ need to function volitionally while simultaneously feeling connected to parents, peers, and others. During adolescence, volitional functioning is characterized by teens feeling that their values and behaviors are self-motivated and authentic, and they are not merely doing what parents or other authority figures desire of them. So as the need for both independence and autonomy increase during adolescence, and because optimal development and internalization of values depends upon volitional functioning and motivation, parents ideally become less directly influential in determining the behavior of their teens and instead influence children indirectly through the adolescent’s own self-chosen values, beliefs, and behaviors (Padilla-Walker, Reference Padilla-Walker, Padilla-Walker and Carlo2014; Soenens et al., Reference Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Beyers and Bornstein2019). Though these changes can lead to some minor growing pains, for the most part adolescents continue to rely on their parents despite a desire for increasing autonomy, and most relationships remain strong and stable across adolescence (Jaggers et al., Reference Jaggers, Bolland and Tomek2017).

Parenting Styles, Parental Warmth, and Parental Control

Historically, researchers have explored parenting styles and dimensions as they relate to adolescent outcomes. Parenting styles represent the overarching emotional climate of the parent–child relationship, and are made up of parenting dimensions including warmth/support, and control/demandingness (Darling & Steinberg, Reference Darling and Steinberg1993). It has been generally established that authoritative parenting, or parenting that is high on both warmth/support and control/demandingness is the most adaptive at promoting a variety of adolescent outcomes. More specifically, authoritative parenting has been associated positively with prosocial behavior, academic efficacy (Carlo et al., Reference Carlo, White, Streit, Knight and Zeiders2018), and intrinsic academic motivation (Tang et al., Reference Tang, Li, Sandoval and Liu2018); and negatively with externalizing problems (Pinquart, Reference Pinquart2017). Research has also consistently found that neglectful parenting styles (low on both warmth and control) are associated with the most negative adolescent outcomes, including behavioral problems (Di Maggio & Zappulla, Reference Di Maggio and Zappulla2014), low academic competence (Johnsen et al., Reference Johnsen, Bjørknes, Iversen and Sandbæk2018), and low prosocial behavior (Carlo et al., Reference Carlo, White, Streit, Knight and Zeiders2018). That being said, there is less consistency in the effectiveness of authoritarian parenting, or parenting high on control and low on warmth, probably because the ways in which adolescents interpret parental warmth may vary significantly by ethnicity and culture (Jackson-Newsom et al., Reference Jackson-Newsom, Buchanan and McDonald2008).

In terms of parenting dimensions, research has found that maternal warmth is relatively stable across adolescence, while paternal warmth declines slightly (Jaggers et al., Reference Jaggers, Bolland and Tomek2017). Parental warmth has been associated with a variety of adaptive adolescent outcomes, including lower levels of depression (del Barrio et al., Reference Del Barrio, Holgado-Tello and Carrasco2016), loneliness (Chen et al., Reference Chen, Liu and Li2000), and aggression; and higher levels of self-worth (Chen et al., Reference Chen, Liu and Li2000), social and academic competence, and filial behavior toward parents (Cheah et al., Reference Cheah, Bayram Özdemir and Leung2012). Clearly parental warmth is an important protective factor for adolescents across a variety of cultures, and importantly can also act as a buffer against harsh parenting (Wang, Reference Wang2019). While this is not surprising or innovative, this body of research supports the notion that one of the most important things parents can do is to maintain a positive relationship with their adolescent child.

The maintenance of this positive relationship is in part achieved by parent–child affection and warmth, but it is also clearly undermined by parental control during a developmental time period that is characterized by a desire for increased autonomy. Parental behavioral control is characterized by parents placing developmentally reasonable limits on a child’s behavior (e.g., curfew, household rules), and is seen as an adaptive part of authoritative parenting in younger children and teens, that is associated with positive outcomes. That being said, even behavioral control can begin to feel overly controlling during adolescence and the transition to adulthood as demands for autonomy increase (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, Reference Padilla-Walker, Stockdale and McLean2019), especially if parents’ lack of effective behavioral control as adolescents are less often in the parental home leads to psychological control. Levels of parental psychological control (subtly manipulating the child’s emotions and feelings to match those of the parent) (Barber, Reference Barber1996) are generally low, but slightly increase over time for the majority of adolescents (Rogers et al., Reference Rogers, Padilla-Walker, McLean and Hurst2020). Maternal psychological control is consistently associated with higher levels of adolescent depression, anxiety, disordered eating (Eun et al., Reference Eun, Paksarian, He and Merikangas2018), and aggression (He et al., Reference He, Yuan, Sun and Bian2019) and lower levels of self-esteem (Boudreault-Bouchard et al., Reference Boudreault-Bouchard, Dion, Hains, Vandermeerschen, Laberge and Perron2013) and prosocial behavior toward friends and strangers (Fu & Zhang, Reference Fu and Zhang2019). Perhaps the reason that parental psychological control is so consistently associated with negative outcomes is because it impacts adolescents’ self-regulation (Rogers et al., Reference Rogers, Memmott-Elison, Padilla-Walker and Byon2019) and ability to cope emotionally (Inguglia, Reference Inguglia, Costa, Ingoglia, Cuzzocrea and Liga2020), though more research on potential mechanisms is clearly needed (Laird & Frazer, Reference Laird and Frazer2019). Taken together, there is little doubt that parental control, especially psychological control, during adolescence is maladaptive in most cases. That being said, parental monitoring, which may also be seen as a form of parental control, if done in a way that maximizes the adolescent’s autonomy and promotes child disclosure, can be relatively more effective in the context of a high-quality parent–child relationship.

Parental Monitoring and Child Information Management during Adolescence

Parental monitoring is defined as “a set of correlated parenting behaviors involving attention to and tracking of the child’s whereabouts, activities, and adaptations” (e.g., parental solicitation, behavioral control) (Dishion & McMahon, Reference Dishion and McMahon1998, p. 61; see Table 11.1 for a breakdown of autonomy supportive and restrictive monitoring strategies across contexts). Adolescents play an active role in parental monitoring by employing a wide range of information management strategies, or strategies children use to manage the amount of information provided to parents. Various forms of adolescent information management strategies fall under two broad categories of disclosure (e.g., voluntarily sharing information with parents) and concealment strategies (e.g., secret keeping), which are distinct yet negatively related constructs (Keijsers & Laird, Reference Keijsers and Laird2010). Developmental trajectories of parental monitoring and information management generally show slight normative declines in parental solicitation and behavioral control (Lionetti et al., Reference Lionetti, Palladino and Moses Passini2019), parental knowledge (Keijsers et al., Reference Keijsers, Voelkle, Maciejewski, Branje, Koot, Hiemstra and Meeus2016), and adolescent disclosure (Padilla-Walker, Son, et al., Reference Padilla-Walker, Coyne, Kroff and Memmott-Elison2018), and an increase in secrecy (Lionetti et al., Reference Lionetti, Palladino and Moses Passini2019) across adolescence, though these trends differ somewhat for boys and for girls (Keijsers & Poulin, Reference Keijsers and Poulin2013).

Correlates of parental monitoring and information management. Adolescent information management has consistently been found to be a stronger predictor of increased parental knowledge (Keijsers et al., Reference Keijsers, Voelkle, Maciejewski, Branje, Koot, Hiemstra and Meeus2016) and lower levels of adolescent delinquency (e.g., Kapetanovic et al., Reference Kapetanovic, Boele and Skoog2019) and substance use (e.g., McCann et al., Reference McCann, Perra, McLaughlin, McCartan and Higgins2016) compared to parental monitoring strategies. The associations between parental monitoring strategies and parental knowledge and youth outcomes have produced more inconsistent findings, with parental solicitation being moderately related to greater parental knowledge (Keijsers et al., Reference Keijsers, Voelkle, Maciejewski, Branje, Koot, Hiemstra and Meeus2016) but not to lower delinquency (Kapetanovic et al., Reference Kapetanovic, Boele and Skoog2019), and parental behavioral control showing nonsignificant (Willoughby & Hamza, Reference Willoughby and Hamza2011), negative (Kerr et al. Reference Kerr, Stattin and Burk2010), and positive (Liu et al., Reference Liu, Chen and Brown2020) relations with parental knowledge and delinquency (Keijsers et al., Reference Keijsers, Branje, VanderValk and Meeus2010). Parental monitoring behaviors seem to have more indirect effects on parental knowledge and adolescent outcomes through promoting greater disclosure (Willoughby & Hamza, Reference Willoughby and Hamza2011).

Given the transactional nature of parent–adolescent communication, parental monitoring and adolescent information management should be understood within the contexts of the parent–adolescent relationship and family environment. Quality parent–adolescent relationships characterized by warmth (Gondoli et al., Reference Gondoli, Grundy, Salafia and Bonds2008) and support (Keijsers et al., Reference Keijsers, Voelkle, Maciejewski, Branje, Koot, Hiemstra and Meeus2016) facilitate open communication between parents and children. Parent–adolescent relationship quality also moderates the associations between communication efforts and adolescent outcomes (Laird & Marrero, Reference Laird and Marrero2010) such that parental control, parental solicitation, and adolescent disclosure are associated with less externalizing problems only when adolescents perceived high levels of parental warmth and support (Micalizzi et al., Reference Micalizzi, Sokolovsky, Janssen and Jackson2019). These findings thus point to the need to adopt a positive parent–adolescent relationship and family climate in order for parental monitoring strategies to be effective in fostering adolescents’ volitional disclosure, preventing adolescent delinquency, and promoting positive adaptations in adolescents. These principles also apply to parental monitoring in specific contexts, including media and peers.

Parental Media Monitoring

Parental media monitoring (i.e., parental mediation) refers to specific parenting and parent–child interactions about children’s media use. The most commonly studied parental strategies of media monitoring are active monitoring and restrictive monitoring (Padilla-Walker et al., Reference Padilla-Walker, Coyne, Kroff and Memmott-Elison2018). Parental active monitoring involves actively discussing media use and the content of media with children in an effort to foster critical thinking and conscious consumption of media (Fikkers et al., Reference Fikkers, Piotrowski and Valkenburg2017). Active monitoring has been found to be protective against problematic media use (Hefner et al., Reference Hefner, Knop, Schmitt and Vorderer2019), aggression, substance use (Radanielina Hita et al., Reference Radanielina Hita, Kareklas and Pinkleton2018), and sexual outcomes (Collier et al., Reference Collier, Coyne and Rasmussen2016) concurrently, and against aggression and externalizing behaviors longitudinally (Padilla-Walker et al., Reference Padilla-Walker, Coyne and Collier2016). This autonomy-supportive approach to monitoring media is especially important during adolescence when parental control is more likely to lead to secrecy regarding media use instead of open disclosure (Padilla-Walker, Stockdale, et al., Reference Padilla-Walker, Stockdale, Son, Coyne and Stinnett2020).

Indeed, restrictive monitoring involves restricting or regulating children’s access to and use of media. On one hand, parental restrictive monitoring has been negatively related to aggression (Khurana et al., Reference Khurana, Bleakley, Ellithorpe, Hennessy, Jamieson and Weitz2019), depression (Fardouly et al., Reference Fardouly, Magson, Johnco, Oar and Rapee2018), delinquency (Martins et al., Reference Martins, Matthews and Ratan2017), online risky behaviors (Cabello-Hutt et al., Reference Cabello-Hutt, Cabello and Claro2018), and sexual behaviors (Collier et al., Reference Collier, Coyne and Rasmussen2016). On the other hand, restrictive monitoring has also been associated with greater problematic online behaviors and media use across diverse samples (e.g., Benrazavi et al., Reference Benrazavi, Teimouri and Griffiths2015; Cabello-Hutt et al., Reference Cabello-Hutt, Cabello and Claro2018), and greater levels of aggression and externalizing behavior (Padilla-Walker et al., Reference Padilla-Walker, Coyne and Collier2016). One explanation may be that restrictive monitoring is effective in the prevention of negative outcomes through less media access (Khurana et al., Reference Khurana, Bleakley, Ellithorpe, Hennessy, Jamieson and Weitz2019) and use (Fardouly et al., Reference Fardouly, Magson, Johnco, Oar and Rapee2018), thus providing direct intervention and control, but is also not effective in promoting positive outcomes or consistently predicting adjustment because it does not foster critical thinking (Harvey & Manusov, Reference Harvey and Manusov2020), self-regulation, and sympathy (Padilla-Walker et al., Reference Padilla-Walker, Coyne and Collier2016).

These inconsistencies in the findings on parental monitoring strategies and adolescent outcomes may be due to the lack of taking the parent–child relationship into account. More recent studies have differentiated autonomy-supportive, controlling, and inconsistent parenting styles in conjunction with specific monitoring strategies, and have found autonomy-supportive active and restrictive monitoring strategies to be associated with greater prosocial behavior (Holmgren et al., Reference Holmgren, Padilla‐Walker, Stockdale and Coyne2019), less aggression (Meeus et al., Reference Meeus, Beyens, Geusens, Sodermans and Beullens2018), and less anxiety and depression (Padilla-Walker et al., Reference Padilla-Walker, Stockdale and McLean2019), while controlling and inconsistent styles of monitoring were associated with greater physical and relational aggression (Holmgren et al., Reference Holmgren, Padilla‐Walker, Stockdale and Coyne2019) and greater online victimization and aggression (Katz et al., Reference Katz, Lemish, Cohen and Arden2019) through greater parent–adolescent conflict (Martins et al., Reference Martins, Mares and Nathanson2019) (see Table 11.1). While autonomy-restrictive forms of monitoring may be necessary in extreme circumstances (e.g., if the child is involved in dangerous online relationships), this body of research again points to the importance of the overarching climate of the parent– child relationship, and future research should continue to explore the manner in which parents monitor adolescent media use (autonomy-supportive or restrictive), as well as how parents utilize a combination of various strategies to effectively monitor their children’s use of media (Padilla-Walker, Coyne, et al., Reference Padilla-Walker, Coyne, Kroff and Memmott-Elison2018).

Parental Peer Management

Another specific way that parents monitor adolescent behavior is through management of peer relationships. Although peer relationships do influence adolescents, scholars argue that peers do not replace the influence of parents (Brown & Bakken, Reference Brown and Bakken2011), especially when parents participate in peer management behaviors that impact adolescent relationships (Mounts, Reference Mounts2007). Parental peer management refers to direct, specific parenting behaviors that focus on particular goals, such as improving peer relationships (Mounts, Reference Mounts2011), encouraging prosocial behavior in the adolescent (Gerardy et al., Reference Gerardy, Mounts, Luckner and Valentiner2015), and interrupting delinquent peer influence (Tilton-Weaver et al., Reference Tilton-Weaver, Burk, Kerr and Stattin2013). Specific peer management techniques include: consulting, or a parent’s proactive effort at helping their adolescent problem-solve regarding a friendship (Mounts, Reference Mounts2004); guiding, or parental regulation of peer interactions (Mounts, Reference Mounts2011); and prohibiting, wherein parents prohibit their adolescent from associating with a certain peer or peers (e.g., peers who are engaged in delinquent behaviors; Mounts, Reference Mounts2001). Parental consulting is the strategy that most clearly maximizes adolescent autonomy, while prohibiting is the most controlling (see Table 11.1).

Different outcomes are associated with the various parental peer management behaviors. Adolescents who report higher levels of parental consulting also report higher levels of prosocial behavior (Gerady et al., Reference Gerardy, Mounts, Luckner and Valentiner2015), and lower levels of delinquency and drug activity (Mounts, Reference Mounts2004). Implementing the guiding technique, however, has produced mixed results, as regulating peer interactions is associated with higher friendship quality (Mounts, Reference Mounts2004), but also with higher relational aggression (Gerardy et al., Reference Gerardy, Mounts, Luckner and Valentiner2015). This could be explained by evidence suggesting that the outcomes of peer management techniques can vary across different parenting styles (Mounts, Reference Mounts2002), as well as by the autonomy support offered by the parent (Mounts, Reference Mounts2011). For example, adolescent drug use decreased when authoritative or authoritarian parents used the guiding technique, but drug use increased when uninvolved parents used the same practice (Mounts, Reference Mounts2002).

Similarly, prohibiting an adolescent from interacting with certain peers has shown mixed results. Whereas moderate levels of parental prohibiting were linked with decreased levels of drug use and higher academic achievement in one study (Mounts, Reference Mounts2001), another study showed that higher levels of prohibiting were linked to increased levels of drug use (Mounts, Reference Mounts2002). Again, this may be explained by parenting style, as autonomy-supportive prohibition has been shown to be less maladaptive than controlling prohibition (Soenens et al., Reference Soenens, Vansteenkiste and Niemiec2009). Although navigating an adolescent’s time spent with friends versus family may always be a “balancing act” for parents, practicing peer management techniques can positively impact the developing adolescent and their peer relationships, especially in the context of a high-quality parent–child relationship.

Parental Socialization of Race

Another area in which parents proactively socialize their adolescent children is in regards to race and culture. For racial minority groups experiencing racism, parental influence and racial socialization efforts can be especially protective for children’s socioemotional (Becares et al., Reference Bécares, Nazroo and Kelly2015), psychological (Bynym et al., Reference Bynum, Burton and Best2007), and academic (Varner et al., Reference Varner, Hou, Hodzic, Hurd, Butler-Barnes and Rowley2018) outcomes. Racial socialization entails parenting methods and messages aimed at teaching children to not only value their race (Berkel et al., Reference Berkel, Murry and Hurt2009), but also to navigate the structural disadvantage that children of color face (Hagerman, Reference Hagerman2017). Research indicates that effective racial socialization practices include cultural socialization, where parents focus on communicating the importance of their cultural values and traditions (Liu & Lau, Reference Liu and Lau2013), as well as sharing positive messages about their race and culture (Neblett et al., Reference Neblett, White, Ford, Philip, Nguyên and Sellers2008). Other techniques involve including strategies for environment and image management (Dow, Reference Dow2016), and utilizing frameworks such as Critical Race Parenting, which supports critically minded parents in early, frequent, and open communication about race and racism (Montoya & Sarcedo, Reference Montoya and Sarcedo2018).

Regarding the racial majority, parents can also have a significant influence on the way their children think about race and racism. Racially progressive White families may participate in a type of racial socialization in order to support antiracist values (Matlock & DiAngelo, Reference Matlock and Diangelo2015), but it is a fundamentally different process from the socialization in which minority families participate, as visibly White families teach their children how to navigate structural advantage, rather than disadvantage (Hagerman, Reference Hagerman2017). One prominent but unhelpful ideology in many White families (Matlock & DiAngelo, Reference Matlock and Diangelo2015) is a “color-blind” approach to race and racism (Bonilla-Silva, Reference Bonilla-Silva2015). Dominating the narrative since the Civil Rights movement, this approach purports that racism is in the past (Hagerman, Reference Hagerman2017), yet the color-blind approach has only resulted in the subtle reinforcement of racist societal systems (Adjei et al., Reference Adjei, Mullings and Baffoe2018) and has failed to support socialization processes in families. Antiracist White parents need to remain cognizant that their own privilege may unintentionally reinforce the racial status quo if they shield their own children from explicit racism and the realities that children of color face (Hagerman, Reference Hagerman2017), rather than using their privilege to enact change through political action (Matlock & DiAngelo, Reference Matlock and Diangelo2015).

Parent–Child Sex Communication

An important milestone in development is the onset of puberty, involving physical and sexual maturation, as well as the beginnings of adolescent sexual desire (Moore et al., Reference Moore, Berkley-Patton, Bohn, Hawes and Bowe-Thompson2015). The sexual socialization of adolescents can impact the likelihood of adolescent sexual risk behaviors (Leland & Barth, Reference Leland and Barth1993), influencing the child’s sexual beliefs and decisions (Jaccard et al., Reference Jaccard, Dodge and Dittus2002), attitudes (Cox et al., Reference Cox, Shreffler, Merten, Gallus and Dowdy2015), behaviors (Overbeek et al., Reference Overbeek, van de Bongardt and Baams2018), and values (Flores & Barroso, Reference Flores and Barroso2017). A key component of sexual socialization is parent– child sex communication (Jerman & Constantine, Reference Jerman and Constantine2010), characterized as a reciprocal, enduring process between parents and children (Flores & Barroso, Reference Flores and Barroso2017). Parents who communicate with their children about sexuality can provide a protective influence against sexual risk behaviors (Moore et al., Reference Moore, Berkley-Patton, Bohn, Hawes and Bowe-Thompson2015), perhaps because accurately informed youth can make better decisions about their sexual behavior (Liu et al., Reference Liu, Fuller, Hutton and Grant2017).

Despite evidence linking parent–child sex communication to positive adolescent sexual health outcomes, such as delayed sexual initiation (Aspy et al., Reference Aspy, Vesely, Oman, Rodine, Marshall and McLeroy2007), and dependable STI/HIV prevention (Teitelman et al., Reference Teitelman, Ratcliffe and Cederbaum2008), other evidence suggests the opposite, with increased parent–child sexual communication linked to more adolescent sexual risk behaviors (Clawson & Reese-Weber, Reference Clawson and Reese-Weber2003). These mixed results may be explained by the quality of the conversation (Deptula et al., Reference Deptula, Henry and Schoeny2010). For example, adolescents were more likely to have had sexual intercourse if parents lectured them against sexuality (Rogers et al., Reference Rogers, Ha, Stormshak and Dishion2015), whereas open and warm communication was linked with less risky adolescent sexual behaviors (Malacane & Beckmeyer, Reference Malacane and Beckmeyer2016). This effective parent–child sex communication is facilitated by the parent–child relationship (Wilson et al., Reference Wilson, Dalberth and Koo2010a), as a supportive parent–child relationship is correlated with more conservative sexual attitudes (Cox et al., Reference Cox, Shreffler, Merten, Gallus and Dowdy2015), as well as higher amounts of sex communication (Flores & Barroso, Reference Flores and Barroso2017).

Although most parents assume heterosexuality when engaging in parent– child sex communication (Flores & Barroso, Reference Flores and Barroso2017), all children can benefit from non-heterosexist language when discussing sexual development, as it can create a safe space for an undisclosed sexual-minority child to continue to participate in open communication (Majied, Reference Majied2013). Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning (LGBTQ) children are at higher risk for early abuse (before age 18; Friedman et al., Reference Friedman, Marshal, Stall, Cheong and Wright2008), and negative sexual health outcomes (Flores & Barroso, Reference Flores and Barroso2017), with parental rejection after “coming out” increasing LGBTQ rates of homeless and mental health disorders (Rhoades et al., Reference Rhoades, Rusow, Bond, Lanteigne, Fulginiti and Goldbach2018). Parents who utilize non-heterosexist language (Majied, Reference Majied2013) and do the work required to fully accept their potential LGBTQ youth can provide the supportive environment necessary for the emotion well-being of their children (Tyler & Abetz, Reference Tyler and Abetz2020).

Inconsistencies in Parenting as a Function of Child and Parent Demographics

The majority of research on parenting has been conducted using Western, white, middle-class mothers, raising questions regarding whether parenting is consistent for boys and girls, mothers and fathers, and across different racial/cultural groups and families from different socioeconomic statuses. In terms of differences as a function of the child’s biological sex, our careful review of the literature suggested there were not consistent mean differences in positive parenting (e.g., warmth) for boys and girls (e.g., Jaggers et al., Reference Jaggers, Bolland and Tomek2017), and very few associations of any kind between parenting and child outcomes were consistently moderated by child gender (e.g., He et al., Reference He, Yuan, Sun and Bian2019; Liu et al., Reference Liu, Riggio, Day, Zheng, Dai and Bian2019). That being said, there were consistent mean differences in parental control and communication as a function of the child’s sex. For example, harsh and psychologically controlling parenting (Chen et al., Reference Chen, Liu and Li2000; Di Giunta et al., Reference Di Giunta, Rothenberg and Lunetti2020; Rogers et al., Reference Rogers, Padilla-Walker, McLean and Hurst2020) and restrictive media monitoring (Top, Reference Top2016; Martins et al., Reference Martins, Mares and Nathanson2019) were generally higher for boys compared to girls. In turn, behavioral control and parental monitoring/solicitation (Hawk et al., Reference Hawk, Becht and Branje2016; Willoughby & Hamza, Reference Willoughby and Hamza2011) were higher for girls compared to boys. These differences may be due to (or a result of) steeper decreases in parental knowledge (Laird et al., Reference Laird, Pettit, Bates and Dodge2003) and disclosure to parents (Masche, Reference Masche2010), and increased levels of secrecy (Keijsers et al., Reference Keijsers, Branje, VanderValk and Meeus2010) in boys compared to girls. Parents are also consistently more likely to communicate with their daughters compared to their sons, especially about sexuality (Boyas et al., Reference Boyas, Stauss and Murphy-Erby2012), and parents are more likely to talk about health consequences and sexual norms with girls (Deutsch & Crockett, Reference Deutsch and Crockett2016; Kapungu et al., Reference Kapungu, Baptiste and Holmbeck2010), while permissive messages are more often communicated to boys (Murphy-Erby et al., Reference Murphy-Erby, Stauss, Boyas and Bivens2011). In short, there appear to be few consistent differences in parenting as a function of the child’s sex, but girls are more likely to be the recipients of appropriate parental control and frequent parental communication than are boys, which highlights the need for continued intervention encouraging parents to engage more often and in less controlling ways with their sons.

In terms of differences as a function of parents’ biological sex, few studies directly compare mothering and fathering – most present separate models for mother and father (Carlo et al., Reference Carlo, White, Streit, Knight and Zeiders2018, Chen et al., Reference Chen, Liu and Li2000; Di Giunta et al., Reference Di Giunta, Rothenberg and Lunetti2020; Tang et al., Reference Tang, Li, Sandoval and Liu2018), use mother reports only (Keijsers et al., Reference Keijsers, Voelkle, Maciejewski, Branje, Koot, Hiemstra and Meeus2016; Padilla-Walker et al., Reference Padilla-Walker, Coyne, Kroff and Memmott-Elison2018), or combine mother and father reports (Johnsen et al., Reference Johnsen, Bjørknes, Iversen and Sandbæk2018; Martins et al., Reference Martins, Mares and Nathanson2019). For those studies that did directly compare the effect of mothers and fathers, there were few consistent identifiable differences, especially when considering parent sex as a moderator of parenting on child behavioral outcomes. There were, however, a few consistent mean differences in the frequency or quality of parenting as a function of parent sex. Namely, parents differ in how they gain parental knowledge and monitor their adolescent child, and in communication about sexuality. More specifically, when monitoring, mothers use more direct approaches (e.g., asking directly), whereas fathers are more likely to use indirect approaches such as observing or asking their spouse for information (Rote & Smetana, Reference Rote and Smetana2018). Additionally, mothers are consistently more likely to discuss sexuality with their children than are fathers (Sneed et al., Reference Sneed, Somoza, Jones and Alfaro2013), again suggesting that while there are few consistent differences in parenting between mothers and fathers, those that do exist suggest that fathers are relying on mothers for information and sexual education of children.

As with child and parent gender, research exploring differences in parenting as a function of race, ethnicity, culture, or SES mostly focus on one group (Chen et al., Reference Chen, Liu and Li2000; Fu & Zhang, Reference Fu and Zhang2019; Jaggers et al., Reference Jaggers, Bolland and Tomek2017), with few comparing across multiple groups. That being said, research that systematically compared findings as a function of race/ethnicity/SES did find that parental control was more frequent in ethnic minority families (e.g., Black, Hispanic) compared to White families, and in low-income compared to high-income families (e.g., Eun et al., Reference Eun, Paksarian, He and Merikangas2018; Mounts, Reference Mounts2004). However, it is notable that although overall control is higher for minority and low-income families, this is not the case when it comes to monitoring of the media, where Hispanic (Top, Reference Top2016), Black (Khurana et al., Reference Khurana, Bleakley, Ellithorpe, Hennessy, Jamieson and Weitz2019), and low-income (Cabello-Hutt et al., Reference Cabello-Hutt, Cabello and Claro2018) families had lower levels of restrictive monitoring than Asian American, White, and high-income families. Research also consistently finds that all parents struggle to talk with their children about sexuality, but that Chinese (Liu et al., Reference Liu, Fuller, Hutton and Grant2017) and Hispanic (Wilson et al., Reference Wilson, Dalberth, Koo and Gard2010b) parents report feeling the most uncomfortable with these conversations because of cultural taboos on sexuality before marriage, while Black parents are more likely to make parent–child conversations about sexuality a priority (Regnerus, Reference Regnerus2005)

Research has also found a few meaningful and consistent moderations as a function of race, culture, and SES in the relations between parenting and child outcomes. Whereas one study found that harsh parenting was associated with internalizing and externalizing problems similarly across nine cultures (Di Giunta et al., Reference Di Giunta, Rothenberg and Lunetti2020), a meta-analysis of parental monitoring found that the link between behavioral control and parental knowledge was stronger among Eastern cultures compared to Western cultures (Liu et al., Reference Liu, Chen and Brown2020), perhaps because parental control is perceived differently by adolescents from different cultures. Research has also found that Black adolescents conceptualize parental warmth differently than do White adolescents (Jackson-Newsom et al., Reference Jackson-Newsom, Buchanan and McDonald2008), suggesting that what might be seen as controlling to a White teen is seen as loving to a Black teen. For example, whereas European American adolescents consistently display negative outcomes in response to authoritarian parenting, that is not always the case for adolescents from ethnic minority groups (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Cui, Steinberg, Larzelere, Morris and Harrist2013) and in countries outside the United States (e.g., Italy) (di Maggio & Zappulla, Reference Di Maggio and Zappulla2014). Taken together, it is clear that more research is needed on how parenting might differ as a function of race, ethnicity, culture, and SES. Relying on parenting research that is primarily conducted using Western, white, middle-class, maternal samples misses considerable and essential nuance. Remedying this should be a continued and intentional direction for future research.

Parents and Adolescents’ Risky Driving

Automobile accidents are one of the leading causes of death among adolescents (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2019) and adolescents have four times higher crash rates than those over the age of 20 (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 2020). A variety of U.S. states have instituted graduated driver’s licenses, where teenagers are required to practice driving under supervision before they obtain their license, and this has been associated with a reduction in risk (Williams & Shults, Reference Williams and Shults2010), but generally requires significant parental involvement. Research suggests that parents who are normally involved and engage in appropriate levels of parental monitoring are also involved and monitor their child’s driving, suggesting that established patterns of parenting influence parental reactions to this new developmental task (Laird, Reference Laird2014). Parental involvement is significantly associated with lower levels of risky driving among teens (Simons-Morton & Quimet, Reference Simons-Morton and Ouimet2006), and parents who have strict rules about driving with peers and night driving have adolescents who report lower levels of risky driving (Laird, Reference Laird2011), especially if parental restrictions occur in the context of a supportive parent–child relationship (Zeringue & Laird, Reference Zeringue and Laird2018). Despite the positive impact parents can have on adolescents’ safe driving, many parents lack the knowledge required to promote safe driving (Mirman & Kay, Reference Mirman and Kay2012), are not adequately involved in monitoring and control of their child’s driving behavior (Hartos et al., Reference Hartos, Eitel and Simons-Morton2002), or do not openly establish and define driving rules (Hartos et al., Reference Hartos, Shattuck, Simons-Morton and Beck2004).

Clearly, continued research and policy on how to best promote parental involvement in driver’s education are important and intervention studies provide some direction on the most appropriate next steps. For example, interventions focused on family feedback and parent training (Taubman-Ben-Ari et al., Reference Taubman–Ben-Ari, Lotan and Prato2017) and that provide concrete follow-up tools (e.g., reports, logging tools) and foster direct and sustained parental engagement (Curry et al., Reference Curry, Peek-Asa, Hamann and Mirman2015) are the most successful at reducing risky driving over time. Research also has found that parents are more likely to grant driving autonomy to older adolescents, even if they are just beginning the driving process. Given that in the last decade many U.S. states have increased the age of full licensure to age 18, this may mean that parents will offset safety gains by allowing adolescent autonomy prematurely (Laird, Reference Laird2014), which has implications suggesting that intervention efforts might be most effective for younger adolescents.

Parents and Adolescents in the Juvenile Justice System

Adolescents, and disproportionally adolescents of color, are arrested for an alarmingly high number of crimes proportional to the percentage of teens that make up the U.S. population (Pinderhughes et al., Reference Pinderhughes, Craddock, Fermin, Sherman and Jacobs2011). Furthermore, how adolescents navigate the juvenile justice system is significantly impacted by a number of aspects of parenting (Tolou-Shams et al., Reference Tolou-Shams, Brogan and Esposito-Smythers2018), which are strained by parents’ mental health and reduced family functioning. It is clear that not all teens have the benefit of optimal parenting and those who do not are more likely to commit crimes (Sattler & Thomas, Reference Sattler and Thomas2016) and are less likely to navigate the juvenile justice system favorably (Williams & Steinberg, Reference Williams and Steinberg2011).

Parental participation in the probation process is critical for cessation from crime, but mothers who know the least about the legal system (Cavanaugh & Cauffman, Reference Cavanagh and Cauffman2017) and who have the most negative attitudes about legitimacy of the justice system (Cavanaugh & Cauffman, Reference Cavanagh and Cauffman2015) are the least involved in their child’s legal process, which is associated with a higher likelihood of reoffending. Because the juvenile justice system is primarily focused on adjudication rather than providing supportive mental health services, youth who commit low-level offenses likely receive limited effective help and without the needed parental and community support, often end up reoffending. Research highlights the need for increased assistance and education for parents, especially those who live in resource-deprived communities and who lack adequate social support (Richardson et al., Reference Richardson, Johnson and Vil2014).

Structural inequalities in societies contribute to economic, social, and cultural disadvantages that significantly impact parenting and subsequently adolescent violence and delinquency (Sattler & Thomas, Reference Sattler and Thomas2016). Policy efforts should include prevention aimed at increasing positive parenting among high-risk samples prior to youth offense, but also intervention for those youth who are already in the system, as research has found that positive parenting (e.g., warmth, monitoring, low hostility) benefits juvenile offenders (Williams & Steinberg, Reference Williams and Steinberg2011). Comprehensive interventions should target parenting behaviors, as well as neighborhood social organization and peer delinquency (Chung & Steinberg, Reference Chung and Steinberg2006), and should seek to foster and increase high-quality communication between parents and children to increase parental knowledge and supervision (Flanagan et al., Reference Flanagan, Auty and Farrington2019), which are associated with lower recidivism rates.

Parent–Child Sex Education

Notwithstanding both parent (Lagus et al., Reference Lagus, Bernat, Bearinger, Resnick and Eisenberg2011) and adolescent (Somers & Surmann, Reference Somers and Surmann2004) preference that parents should be a child’s primary source of sexual information, many parents are uncomfortable about these conversations and reluctant to communicate (Malacane & Beckmeyer, Reference Malacane and Beckmeyer2016). Parents often cite embarrassment (Wilson et al., Reference Wilson, Dalberth and Koo2010a), lack of knowledge (Crichton et al., Reference Crichton, Ibisomi and Gyimah2012), discomfort (Elliott, Reference Elliott2010), and developmental concerns (Jerman & Constantine, Reference Jerman and Constantine2010) as barriers to communication. The resulting lack of sexual health knowledge leads to sexually unprepared youth who are therefore less able to make informed choices about sexual behaviors (Liu et al., Reference Liu, Fuller, Hutton and Grant2017), or consider the consequences of these behaviors (de Paul Kanwetuu et al., Reference de Paul Kanwetuu, Mokulogo and Azumah2018).

It may be effective for policy makers to focus on supporting parents in understanding the importance of high-quality parent–child sex communication (Flores & Barroso, Reference Flores and Barroso2017), especially considering that most parents desire to be their child’s primary sex educator (Lagus et al., Reference Lagus, Bernat, Bearinger, Resnick and Eisenberg2011). Policy makers could consider a parent-based approach (Jaccard et al., Reference Jaccard, Dodge and Dittus2002), which utilizes evidence-based interventions aimed at reducing parental barriers to communication, such as lack of sexual health knowledge (Crichton et al., Reference Crichton, Ibisomi and Gyimah2012), and lack of communication skills (Malacane & Beckmeyer, Reference Malacane and Beckmeyer2016). Successful interventions include a focus on strengthening the parent–child relationship (Wilson et al., Reference Wilson, Dalberth and Koo2010a), sexuality education aimed at parents (Sutton et al., Reference Sutton, Lasswell, Lanier and Miller2014), improved parental communication tools (Sevilla et al., Reference Sevilla, Sanabria, Orcasita and Palma2016), as well as opportunities to practice communicating (Kamala et al., Reference Kamala, Rosecrans and Shoo2017) in order to target parents’ attitudes and confidence (Newby et al., Reference Newby, Bayley and Wallace2011). Interventions could take place using methods such as media campaigns and written materials (Malacane & Beckmeyer, Reference Malacane and Beckmeyer2016), healthcare setting interventions (e.g., nurses talking to parents and adolescents together Teitelman et al., Reference Teitelman, Ratcliffe and Cederbaum2008), or in-person workshops (Klein et al., Reference Klein, Sabaratnam, Pazos, Auerbach, Havens and Brach2005). Providing comprehensive sex education (Eisenberg et al., Reference Eisenberg, Bernat, Bearinger and Resnick2008) alongside parent interventions aimed at improving parent–child sex communication (Jaccard et al., Reference Jaccard, Dodge and Dittus2002) would allow parents to transmit their family values about sexuality, while ensuring that adolescents receive accurate sexual health information. This dual approach could prove to be synergistic for policy makers and advocates who hope to promote adolescent sexual health (Prendergast et al., Reference Prendergast, Toumbourou, McMorris and Catalano2019).