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Article
What do mothers want to know about teens’ activities? Levels, trajectories, and correlates.
USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications
  • Judith G. Smetana
  • Wendy M. Rote, University of South Florida St. Petersburg
SelectedWorks Author Profiles:

Wendy Rote

Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Disciplines
Abstract

Middle class mothers (n = 169) of middle adolescents (M = 15.69 years old) in the U.S. rated how much they want to know and responded qualitatively about what they “always” and “never” want to know about adolescents' risky prudential (e.g., drinking alcohol, using illegal drugs), personal (e.g., teens' private conversations), and multifaceted (involving overlapping prudential and personal concerns) activities. Latent growth curve modeling over one year showed that mothers wanted to know most about prudential, less about multifaceted, and least about personal activities; wanting to know declined over time for each type of activity, but less for prudential than for other activities. With teen problem behavior controlled, psychologically controlling parenting, supportive and negative interactions with teens, knowledge of adolescents' activities, and teens' age were associated with individual differences in mothers' initial ratings and trajectories of wanting to know, although results varied by domain and were moderated by teen gender.

Comments

Citation only. Full-text article is available through licensed access provided by the publisher. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.

Language
en_US
Publisher
Elsevier
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0
Citation Information
Smetana, J. G. & Rote, W. M. (2015). What do mothers want to know about teens’ activities? Levels, trajectories, and correlates. Journal of Adolescence, 38, 5-15. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.10.006