NCJ Number
215400
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 35 Issue: 4 Dated: August 2006 Pages: 667-678
Date Published
August 2006
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This paper describes analyses relevant to understanding adolescents’ decisions to voluntarily disclose areas of parent-adolescent disagreement in four areas: the contributions of parent-adolescent agreement and disclosure of disagreement to adolescents perceptions of parental knowledge, the adolescents most likely to fully disclose to their parents in case of disagreement, the conditions under which adolescents are more or less likely to disclose disagreement, and the type of non-disclosure that different adolescents use and under what conditions.
Abstract
Results indicate that non-disclosure of disagreement, but not agreement, predicted adolescents’ perception of parental knowledge. The findings suggest that in assessing parental knowledge, adolescents place greater emphasis on the information they are keeping from parents than on their overall agreement with parents (and presumed disclosure). The finding that agreement is not associated with perceived parental knowledge also suggests that previous research documenting the association of voluntary disclosure with parental knowledge is not simply the result of well-socialized youth agreeing with parents and disclosing their agreement. Overall, these findings provide a replication of past findings that adolescents’ non-disclosure predicts parental knowledge. Parents’ knowledge of their adolescents’ daily activities is an important predictor of a range of positive adolescent outcomes. Adolescents whose parents know relatively more about their day-to-day lives show lower levels of drug and alcohol use, delinquency, school problems, and depressed mood. Recently, there has been a great deal learned about the processes underlying the association between parental knowledge and adolescent outcomes. Individual differences in parental knowledge are more likely to result from individual differences in adolescent disclosure than from parental practices. This study makes two key contributions to understanding voluntary adolescent disclosure. First, it distinguishes between adolescents’ agreement with parents and adolescents’ disclosure of disagreement. The second distinction that provides insight into adolescents’ voluntary disclosure is that of between- and within-person differences. Self-report data were received from 120 adolescents examining adolescent social relationships, leisure, and adjustment. Appendix and references