The role of parental control and coping strategies on adolescents’ problem behaviors

Abstract

The current study was aimed at contributing to the understanding of the role of perceived parental monitoring, psychological control, and coping strategies on adolescents' problem behaviors, in terms of anxiety and drinking behavior. Participants were 541 high school students, 17 to 19-year old (M = 17.09, SD = 0.80) high school students in Sicily and Calabria (Italy). Participants completed self-report measures assessing parental monitoring, psychological control, coping strategies (i.e., Task-Oriented, Emotion-Oriented, and Avoidance-Oriented). Results of the path analysis showed that coping strategies play a mediating role in the association between parental psychological control and both adolescents' anxiety and drinking behavior. Furthermore, a direct positive association was reported from parental psychological control and anxiety, while a negative direct association was reported from parental monitoring to drinking behavior. Results of this study provide a comprehensive model that showed that the different coping strategies could explain the psychological mechanisms that underline the associations between two different kinds of parental control (psychological control and monitoring) and both internalizing and externalizing adolescents' form of maladjustment (e.g. anxiety and drinking behaviors). Overall, coping strategies seem to be a fruitful target for the prevention programs for adolescents' anxiety and drinking behaviors.

Parental Control and Adolescent Delinquency Based on Parallel Process Latent Growth Curve Modeling

“…Consistent with our hypotheses, negative concurrent associations were observed between both parents' BC and adolescent delinquency. The findings are in line with the general conclusion that BC benefits child development, which has been widely supported by previous cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between levels of parents' BC and adolescent problem behavior [4,45,46]. Our investigation expands this relationship pattern to the rate of changes.…”

Antisocial Personality Problems in Emerging Adulthood: The Role of Family Functioning, Impulsivity, and Empathy

“…In particular, international research has shown that the lack of parental warmth, emotional support, and behavioral control are associated with a wide range of youth’s externalizing problems, including aggression [ 35 , 36 ], addictive behaviors [ 37 , 38 , 39 ], and risk-taking [ 40 , 41 ]. Recently, the same associations have been reported also with antisocial traits and delinquency [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ], but focusing almost exclusively on adolescent samples. Only a few studies have explored the association between family functioning and ASPD symptoms among the emerging adulthood population [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 46 ], although the important role played by emerging adults’ family functioning for their psychological well-being has been widely shown [ 33 , 47 ].…”

“…This study aimed to further increase the knowledge on protective and risk factors involved in antisocial personality problems in emerging adulthood. To this end, we have chosen to focus on relational and individual variables (i.e., family functioning, impulsivity, and empathy) that previous literature on adolescent and adult populations has indicated as significant predictors of both personality [ 48 , 49 , 54 , 55 , 56 ] and behavior features [ 44 , 45 , 52 , 80 , 81 ] of antisociality. In addition, we tested a conceptual framework that took into consideration the complex relationships between these variables, considering both the direct effect of family functioning and indirect effects via emerging adults’ impulsivity and empathy.…”

Peer Attachment, Fathering, Social Media Use and Perception of Premarital Sexual Attitude among Teenagers

“…Besides, Suwarni, Ismail, Prabandari, and Adiyanti (2015) found that parental monitoring related to sexual behavior was another important factor to control the attitude toward premarital sexual behaviours among adolescents. Parental monitoring influences attitudes about adolescent sexual behaviour (Inguglia, Costa, Ingoglia, Cuzzocrea, & Liga, 2020;Rostiawan, Yusuf, & Dahlan, 2020;Tomić, Burić, & Štulhofer, 2018). However, in Indonesia, providing information about premarital sex is still considered taboo because parents are worried that when providing information about sex means parents teach their children to have sexual relations.…”