It's 10 O'Clock: Do You Know Where Your Children Are? Recent Advances in Understanding Parental Monitoring and Adolescents' Information Management

Recent research has challenged the established conclusion that vigilant parental monitoring is associated with less externalizing behavior among adolescents. Measures of parental monitoring typically have focused on parents' knowledge of their children's whereabouts, not on parents' active surveillance. Recent research, which controls for parent-adolescent relationships, finds that adolescents' voluntary disclosure to parents about their activities, associates, and whereabouts is more important than previously recognized in predicting parental knowledge and, in turn, reducing teens' involvement in risky behavior. This article reviews recent research on how parents obtain, knowledge of their adolescents' activities and how adolescents manage that information. Tire article also highlights the importance of reciprocal parent-adolescent processes. Directions for future research are discussed.