How much do I tell thee? Strategies for managing information to parents among American adolescents from Chinese, Mexican, and European backgrounds.

Tasopoulos-Chan, Marina; Smetana, Judith G.; Yau, Jenny P.

doi:10.1037/a0015816

Cited by 51 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(96 reference statements)

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“…This pattern of deflecting attention from potentially contentious issues is consistent with the Japanese cultural emphasis on minimizing interpersonal conflicts (Markus & Lin, ) and maintaining interpersonal harmony within the family (Yamada, ). As has been found elsewhere (Tasopoulos‐Chan et al., ), avoiding the topic was used more frequently to manage information about prudential than multifaceted or personal issues and among boys more than girls, perhaps because it is easier to avert a conflict if the issue does not arise.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…Adolescents selected the primary strategy they used for telling or not telling their parents about each issue. Based on previous research (Darling et al., ; Tasopoulos‐Chan, Smetana, & Yau, ), and verified using focus group responses, the strategies were: “Tell [parent] all the important details,” “Tell [parent] only when he/she asks,” “Avoid discussing the issue,” “Leave out important details [parent] wants to know,” and “Make up a story” (e.g., lie). As with justifications, separate proportion scores were created for each strategy, reflecting adolescents' use of a particular strategy for items in that domain relative to the total number of items in the domain.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Japanese Adolescents' Disclosure and Information Management With Parents

et al. 2013

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Adolescents' obligation to disclose and their actual disclosure about their activities to parents, justifications for nondisclosure, and strategies for information management were examined in different domains in 460 middle adolescents (M(age) = 16.6 years) from working and middle-class families in Japan. Adolescents felt most obligated to disclose prudential issues, but disclosed most about personal issues. Adolescents primarily justified nondisclosure with claims to personal choice and for prudential issues, concerns with parental disapproval. They rarely lied and mostly told parents if asked or avoided the issue. Findings revealed consistencies with prior work on disclosure with European and U.S. adolescents, as well as patterns specific to the Japanese cultural setting.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Japanese Adolescents' Disclosure and Information Management With Parents

et al. 2013

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“…Adolescents may view parents who have a history of engaging in receptive communication as more trustworthy (Tasopoulos-Chan, Smetana, & Yau, 2009), leading them to feel safer openly discussing past and current smoking behavior. We also examined in the present study potential heterogeneity among teens who used different concealing strategies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information management strategies within conversations about cigarette smoking: Parenting correlates and longitudinal associations with teen smoking.

Metzger¹,

Wakschlag²,

Anderson³

et al. 2013

Developmental Psychology

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The present study examined smoking-specific and general parenting predictors of in vivo observed patterns of parent–adolescent discussion concerning adolescents’ cigarette smoking experiences and associations between these observed patterns and 24-month longitudinal trajectories of teen cigarette smoking behavior (nonsmokers, current experimenters, escalators). Parental solicitation, adolescent disclosure, and adolescent information management were coded from direct observations of 528 video-recorded parent–adolescent discussions about cigarette smoking with 344 teens (M age = 15.62 years) with a history of smoking experimentation (321 interactions with mothers, 207 interactions with fathers). Adolescent initiation of discussions concerning their own smoking behavior (21% of interactions) was predicted by lower levels of maternal observed disapproval of cigarette smoking and fewer teen-reported communication problems with mothers. Maternal initiation in discussions (35% of interactions) was associated with higher levels of family rules about illicit substance use. Three categories of adolescent information management (full disclosure, active secrecy, incomplete strategies) were coded by matching adolescents’ confidential self-reported smoking status with their observed spontaneous disclosures and responses to parental solicitations. Fully disclosing teens reported higher quality communication with their mothers (more open, less problematic). Teens engaged in active secrecy with their mothers when families had high levels of parental rules about illicit substance use and when mothers expressed lower levels of expectancies that their teen would smoke in the future. Adolescents were more likely to escalate their smoking over 2 years if their parents initiated the discussion of adolescent smoking behavior (solicited) and if adolescents engaged in active secrecy.

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“…However, previous research does provide some support for such a link. For example, using generational status as a proximal measure of acculturation, Tasopoulos-Chan et al (2009) found that second generation Chinese American youth more frequently avoided discussing their activities with their parents than did first generation Chinese American youth. In a case study of Chinese immigrant families, Qin (2006) found that both parents and children report that parents do not know about their children’s friends and school activities and children do not tell their parents about their experiences due to the fact that parents and children adhere to the heritage and mainstream cultures to different degrees.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parent–Child Acculturation Discrepancy, Perceived Parental Knowledge, Peer Deviance, and Adolescent Delinquency in Chinese Immigrant Families

Wang

Kim

Anderson

et al. 2011

J Youth Adolescence

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Parent–child acculturation discrepancy has been considered a risk factor for child maladjustment. The current study examined parent–child acculturation discrepancy as an ongoing risk factor for delinquency, through the mediating pathway of parental knowledge of the child’s daily experiences relating to contact with deviant peers. Participants were drawn from a longitudinal project with 4 years between data collection waves: 201 Chinese immigrant families participated at Wave 1 (123 girls and 78 boys) and 183 families (110 girls and 73 boys) participated at Wave 2. Based on the absolute difference in acculturation levels (tested separately for Chinese and American orientations) between adolescents and parents, one parent in each family was assigned to the “more discrepant” group of parent–child dyads, and the other parent was assigned to the “less discrepant” group of parent–child dyads. To explore possible within-family variations, the mediating pathways were tested separately among the more and less discrepant groups. Structural equation modeling showed that the proposed mediating pathways were significant only among the more discrepant parent–adolescent dyads in American orientation. Among these dyads, a high level of parent–child acculturation discrepancy is related to adolescent perceptions of less parental knowledge, which is related to adolescents having more contact with deviant peers, which in turn leads to more adolescent delinquency. This mediating pathway is significant concurrently, within early and middle adolescence, and longitudinally, from early to middle adolescence. These findings illuminate some of the dynamics in the more culturally discrepant parent–child dyad in a family and highlight the importance of examining parent–child acculturation discrepancy within family systems.

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How much do I tell thee? Strategies for managing information to parents among American adolescents from Chinese, Mexican, and European backgrounds.

Cited by 51 publications

References 47 publications

Japanese Adolescents' Disclosure and Information Management With Parents

Japanese Adolescents' Disclosure and Information Management With Parents

Information management strategies within conversations about cigarette smoking: Parenting correlates and longitudinal associations with teen smoking.

Parent–Child Acculturation Discrepancy, Perceived Parental Knowledge, Peer Deviance, and Adolescent Delinquency in Chinese Immigrant Families

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