Keeping secrets from parents: daily variations among poor, urban adolescents

Communicating and Connecting: Associations Between Daily Adolescent Disclosure and Mother-Adolescent Responsiveness

Adolescents who share information with their parents tend to have more positive parent-adolescent relationships. This brief report examined daily variability in adolescents' disclosure to mothers and mother-adolescent responsiveness. Using a 7-day intensive longitudinal design with 109 mother-adolescent (14-18 years) pairs, multilevel models revealed the amount of information adolescents disclosed to mothers varied day-to-day, according to both adolescent and mother reports. On days when adolescents perceived mothers to be more responsive than usual, adolescents were more likely to disclose. On days when mothers perceived adolescents to be more responsive than usual, mothers perceived more adolescent disclosure. Lastly, more responsive adolescents disclosed more on average across the week according to both adolescent and mother reports of disclosure compared to less responsive adolescents.

Strategies and Reasons for Nondisclosure in Close Relationships During Adolescence

Adolescents keep secrets from parents to assert independence or avoid punishment; however, there is little research on nondisclosure in other close relationships during adolescence. This article examines strategies and reasons for nondisclosure between adolescents (N = 244, 47.5% female, M_age = 12.71, SD_age = 1.66) and multiple close relationships (parents, siblings, and best friends). The results show that adolescents tended to use nondisclosure strategies more for personal information (e.g., thoughts/feelings). Adolescents had more reasons to keep information from family as they got older, and girls reported keeping information from mothers more than boys because they would feel bad, embarrassed, or ashamed. These findings provide a greater understanding of patterns of nondisclosure during adolescence, which may in turn have implications for adolescent adjustment and relationship quality.

Adolescents' Well-Being with Respect to the Patterns of Disclosure to and Secrecy from Parents and the Best Friend: A Person-Centered Examination

Adolescents' disclosure and secrecy behaviors have important implications for their well-being. Previous research examined adolescent disclosure and secrecy mostly in one close relationship (i.e., one's mother). What remains to be addressed is the patterns of disclosure and secrecy considering adolescents' other close relationships and the well-being differences between these patterns. Adopting a person-centered approach, the current study examined constellations of disclosure and secrecy in adolescents' relationships with their mother, father and best friends, and the extent to which these patterns differ with respect to life satisfaction, problem-solving confidence, and anxiety. The sample consisted of middle adolescents (N = 1097; M_age = 15.12; range = 14-16; 61.6% female) from nine public schools in Istanbul, Turkey. Analysis conducted for the whole sample showed that best friends were the most frequently disclosed confidants followed by mothers, and secrecy was similar for best friends and mothers. Adolescents were least likely to disclose to their fathers and keep secrets from them more frequently. Comparisons of the five classes identified with latent profile analysis, however, indicated that the class with the best well-being status (highest life satisfaction, problem-solving confidence, and lowest anxiety) consisted of adolescents who disclosed most often to their mothers, seconded by best friends, and kept secrets less often from their parents than their best friends. The class with the lowest well-being status consisted of adolescents who had lowest disclosure and highest secrecy in three close relationships. Overall, findings underscored the usefulness of person-centered analytic approach showing that while best friends were the primary confidents when examined with a variable-centered approach, adolescents with the highest well-being status reported to disclose most often to their mothers. This finding underlines the importance of sharing personal information and being less secretive especially with mothers in adolescence.

Keeping secrets from parents: on galloping horses, prancing ponies and pink unicorns

We identify the need for a new wave of research on adolescent secrecy in their relationship with parents that relinquishes the focus on the nomothetic objective of finding general principles. This third wave builds on novel insights on three fallacies committed in previous waves of research: (1) between-person effects do not necessarily provide insights into within-family processes (the ecological fallacy), (2) within-family processes are not necessarily homogeneous across adolescents and families (the one size fits all fallacy), and (3) longer-term effects are not necessarily identical to short-term processes (the galloping horse fallacy). This approach promises to provide us with a more person-specific understanding of adolescent secrecy from parents, which enables more tailored insights as to when and for whom secrecy is bad versus good.

Youth secrets are associated with poorer sleep and asthma symptoms via negative affect

OBJECTIVE

Among older children and adolescents, keeping secrets from parents is consistently associated with lower levels of psychological well-being. Further, concealing one's thoughts and emotions has been associated with poor physical health outcomes in adults. However, it remains an open question whether secret-keeping is associated with poorer health and health-related behaviors (such as sleep) among youth and, if those hypothesized links exist, what the psychological mechanisms might be. We investigated the associations among youth secrecy towards parents, daily asthma symptoms and daily sleep behaviors in a sample of low-income youth with asthma aged 10-17 and tested negative affect as a possible mediator of these associations.

METHODS

One hundred and seventy two youths reported the extent to which they kept secrets towards parents over a period of four days. Asthma symptoms, nighttime awakenings, sleep onset latency, and subjective sleep quality were assessed with daily diaries completed by youths.

RESULTS

More frequent secret-keeping was associated with more severe asthma symptoms, lower ratings of sleep quality and greater number of nighttime awakenings. Secrecy was also associated with increased negative affect, which accounted for the associations between secrecy and number of awakenings and daytime asthma symptoms. These findings remained significant after controlling for youth age and other relevant demographic factors.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that secrecy towards parents can have consequential health outcomes for youth with asthma and point to the importance of investigating affective processes as mediators of the influence of secret-keeping on youth health.

When Do Adolescents Accept or Defy to Maternal Prohibitions? The Role of Social Domain and Communication Style

Drawing upon both Social-Cognitive Domain Theory and Self-Determination Theory, the goal of the present multi-informant study was to test whether the correlates of maternal prohibitions depend on what is prohibited (i.e., the content of the social domain involved), thereby contrasting moral with friendship prohibitions, as well on how the prohibition is communicated, thereby contrasting an autonomy-supportive with a controlling communication style. In a sample of adolescents (N = 196; mean age = 13.9 years; 63 % female) and their mothers (N = 185; mean age = 44 years), we first examined mean-level differences between the two domains in terms of mothers' degree and style of prohibition, as well as on a number of developmental outcomes (i.e., adolescents' legitimacy perceptions, internalization, and oppositional defiance). Both adolescents and mothers reported more maternal involvement in the moral domain (e.g., higher scores for degree of prohibition and controlling communication style). In addition, adolescents reported greater perceived legitimacy and less oppositional defiance in the moral domain (as compared to the friendships domain). Second, we tested whether associations between degree and style of prohibition and the developmental outcomes were moderated by social domain. Whereas associations between degree of prohibition and developmental outcomes either were non-significant or moderated by domain, the associations with communication style were more domain-invariant, with an autonomy-supportive style generally yielding an adaptive pattern of correlates and with a controlling style relating to maladaptive outcomes. The discussion focuses on similarities and differences in the characteristics and correlates of both types of prohibitions.

Parental monitoring and knowledge: Testing bidirectional associations with youths' antisocial behavior

In the present study, we used separate measures of parental monitoring and parental knowledge and compared their associations with youths' antisocial behavior during preadolescence, between the ages of 10 and 12. Parental monitoring and knowledge were reported by mothers, fathers, and youths taking part in the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study that follows 1,116 families with twins. Information on youths' antisocial behavior was obtained from mothers as well as teachers. We report two main findings. First, longitudinal cross-lagged models revealed that greater parental monitoring did not predict less antisocial behavior later, once family characteristics were taken into account. Second, greater youth antisocial behavior predicted less parental knowledge later. This effect of youths' behavior on parents' knowledge was consistent across mothers', fathers', youths', and teachers' reports, and robust to controls for family confounders. The association was partially genetically mediated according to a Cholesky decomposition twin model; youths' genetically influenced antisocial behavior led to a decrease in parents' knowledge of youths' activities. These two findings question the assumption that greater parental monitoring can reduce preadolescents' antisocial behavior. They also indicate that parents' knowledge of their children's activities is influenced by youths' behavior.

Parents' and Adolescents' Attitudes about Parental Involvement in Clinical Research

STUDY OBJECTIVE

To understand parent and adolescent attitudes toward parental involvement during clinical trials and factors related to those attitudes.

DESIGN

As part of a study on willingness to participate in a hypothetical microbicide study, adolescents and their parents were interviewed separately.

SETTING

Adolescent medicine clinics in New York City.

PARTICIPANTS

There were 301 dyads of adolescents (ages 14-17 years; 62% female; 72% Hispanic) and their parents.

INTERVENTIONS

None.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

The interview included questions on demographic characteristics, sexual history, and family environment (subscales of the Family Environment Scale) that were associated with attitudes about parental involvement.

RESULTS

Factor analysis of the parental involvement scale yielded 2 factors: LEARN, reflecting gaining knowledge about study test results and behaviors (4 items) and PROCEDURE, reflecting enrollment and permissions (4 items). Adolescents endorsed significantly fewer items on the LEARN scale and the PROCEDURE scale indicating that adolescents believed in less parental involvement. There was no significant concordance between adolescents and their own parents on the LEARN scale and the PROCEDURE scale. In final multivariate models predicting attitudes, adolescents who were female and had sexual contact beyond kissing, and non-Hispanic parents had lower LEARN scores. Adolescents who were older, had previous research experience, and reported less moral or religious emphasis in their family had lower PROCEDURE scores; there were no significant predictors for parents in the multivariate analyses.

CONCLUSION

Parents wanted greater involvement in the research process than adolescents. Recruitment and retention might be enhanced by managing these differing expectations.

Longitudinal Relations Among Parental Monitoring Strategies, Knowledge, and Adolescent Delinquency in a Racially Diverse At-Risk Sample

Parents raising youth in high-risk communities at times rely on active, involved monitoring strategies in order to increase both knowledge about youth activities and the likelihood that adolescents will abstain from problem behavior. Key monitoring literature suggests that some of these active monitoring strategies predict increases in adolescent problem behavior rather than protect against it. However, this literature has studied racially homogenous, low-risk samples, raising questions about generalizability. With a diverse sample of youth (N = 753; 58% male; 46% Black) and families living in high-risk neighborhoods, bidirectional longitudinal relations were examined among three aspects of monitoring (parental discussions of daily activities, parental curfew rules, and adolescent communication with parents), parental knowledge, and youth delinquency. Parental discussion of daily activities was the strongest predictor of parental knowledge, which negatively predicted delinquency. However, these aspects of monitoring did not predict later delinquency. Findings were consistent across gender and race/urbanicity. Results highlight the importance of active and involved parental monitoring strategies in contexts where they are most needed.

Associations among solicitation, relationship quality, and adolescents' disclosure and secrecy with mothers and best friends

Disclosure and secrecy with mothers and best friends about personal, bad behavior, and multifaceted (e.g., staying out late) activities were examined using daily diaries among 102 ethnically diverse, urban middle adolescents (M = 15.18 years, SD = .89). Adolescents disclosed more and kept fewer secrets from best friends than from mothers and more frequently disclosed and kept secrets about their personal than their bad behavior and multifaceted activities. Better daily relationship quality was associated with more disclosure about personal and multifaceted activities and less secrecy about bad behaviors for both mothers and best friends. Overall, when mothers solicited information, adolescents disclosed more but also kept more secrets from them, whereas best friends' solicitation was mostly associated with more disclosure.

Parental monitoring and adolescent problem behaviors

This article aims to provide a critical analysis of how much we know about the effectiveness of parental monitoring in preventing adolescent delinquency. First, it describes the historical developments in parental monitoring research. Second, it explains why it is uncertain whether causal inferences can be drawn from contemporary research findings on the link of parenting and adolescent problem behaviors. Third, it is empirically demonstrated, using Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Models, how distinguishing between-person and within-person associations may alter or strengthen conclusions regarding the links of parental monitoring and adolescent disclosure with adolescent delinquency. Previously detected correlations between parental monitoring and adolescent delinquency were not present at the within-family level. However, there were significant associations between within-person fluctuations in disclosure and delinquency. Together, these models provide stronger evidence for a potential causal link between disclosure and delinquency, but also suggest that previously detected linkages of parental monitoring and delinquency can be explained by stable between-person differences rather than causal processes operating within families.

Secrecy From Parents and Type 1 Diabetes Management in Late Adolescence

OBJECTIVES

This study examined (a) associations of parent-adolescent relationship characteristics and adolescent problem behavior with late adolescents' secrecy from parents about type 1 diabetes management, and (b) whether secrecy was associated with diabetes and psychological outcomes independently of these factors.

METHODS

Adolescents (N = 247, Mage = 17.76 years) completed survey measures of diabetes-related secrecy from parents, disclosure, parental acceptance, parental knowledge, and conduct problems. Mothers and adolescents reported on adolescent adherence to diabetes regimens and adolescents reported their depressive symptoms. Glycemic control was obtained from HbA1c test kits.

RESULTS

Adolescent-reported disclosure to parents was uniquely negatively associated with secrecy from parents. Controlling for relationship variables, conduct problems, and sociodemographic and illness-related variables, secrecy from mothers was uniquely associated with poorer glycemic control and secrecy from both parents was associated with lower adherence.

CONCLUSIONS

Secrecy about type 1 diabetes management is uniquely associated with diabetes outcomes independent of other relationship characteristics and problem behaviors.

Adolescent disclosure of information about peers: the mediating role of perceptions of parents' right to know

Following the important insight that what parents know about their adolescent offspring depends primarily on what the child tells them, this study examines how attitudes about what parents have a right to know mediate the associations between several factors (quality of parent-child relationships, time spent with family and peers, levels of antisocial and prosocial behaviors, and gender and age) and adolescents' disclosures about peer relations. In two studies of early and middle adolescents (Ns = 231, 249; M ages = 14.5, 13.0; 62.3, 51.8 % female; 53.7, 67.5 % European American), a new measure of right-to-know attitudes is derived and then applied to four facets of adolescents' experiences with peers: details of activities with peers, issues in specific relationships, and positive and negative peer characteristics. The findings indicate that adolescents are more inclined to disclose certain aspects of their peer relations than others, but these inclinations are related to several factors-especially the quality of mother-child relationships and involvement in antisocial behavior-and mediated by adolescents' attitudes regarding what parents have a right to know about peers. The results are related to autonomy development and parental oversight of adolescent peer interactions.

Intergenerational Conflict Management in Immigrant Arab Canadian Families

The present studies bridged across the conflict management and family psychology literatures to increase our understanding of intergenerational conflict within the context of immigrant Arab Canadian families. Using a quantitative approach, Study 1 ( n = 71) found that although emerging adults reported relatively low levels of intergenerational conflict, honor-related conflict issues were salient to this population and not captured by the Intergenerational Conflict Inventory. Study 1 also found that emerging adults’ preferred conflict handling style was associated with overall levels of intergenerational conflict as well as cultural orientation and adaptation. Three conflict handling styles (avoid, integrate, and dominate) were associated with increased intergenerational conflict, whereas oblige was associated with decreased intergenerational conflict. These results were confirmed using a qualitative approach in Study 2 ( n = 12). Importantly, Study 2 also suggested that oblige took two distinct forms in this population, as some emerging adults actually obliged their parents in the conflict situation, whereas others stated that they would but covertly disobeyed their parents.

Mothers' and fathers' autonomy-relevant parenting: longitudinal links with adolescents' externalizing and internalizing behavior

The goal of this study was to advance the understanding of separate and joint effects of mothers' and fathers' autonomy-relevant parenting during early and middle adolescence. In a sample of 518 families, adolescents (49 % female; 83 % European American, 16 % African American, 1 % other ethnic groups) reported on their mothers' and fathers' psychological control and knowledge about adolescents' whereabouts, friends, and activities at ages 13 and 16. Mothers and adolescents reported on adolescents' externalizing and internalizing behaviors at ages 12, 14, 15, and 17. Adolescents perceived their mothers as using more psychological control and having more knowledge than their fathers, but there was moderate concordance between adolescents' perceptions of their mothers and fathers. More parental psychological control predicted increases in boys' and girls' internalizing problems and girls' externalizing problems. More parental knowledge predicted decreases in boys' externalizing and internalizing problems. The perceived levels of behavior of mothers and fathers did not interact with one another in predicting adolescent adjustment. The results generalize across early and late adolescence and across mothers' and adolescents' reports of behavior problems. Autonomy-relevant mothering and fathering predict changes in behavior problems during early and late adolescence, but only autonomy-relevant fathering accounts for unique variance in adolescent behavior problems.

Adolescents' information management: comparing ideas about why adolescents disclose to or keep secrets from their parents

Recognizing that adolescents providing or withholding information about their activities is a strong predictor of parental knowledge, this article compares several ideas about what prompts adolescents to disclose information or keep secrets from their parents. Using a sample of 874 Northern European adolescents (aged 12-16 years; 49.8 % were girls), modified cross-lagged models examined parental monitoring (solicitation and monitoring rules), adolescent delinquency, and perceived parental support as predictors and consequences of adolescents disclosing to parents or keeping secrets, with adolescents' acceptance of parental authority as a moderator. Results suggest that, when adolescents view their parents as supportive, they subsequently disclose more and keep fewer secrets. Engaging in delinquent behavior was related reciprocally to keeping secrets. By comparison, the results generally did not support the idea that adolescents who are monitored provide information to parents, even when they accept parental authority. These results suggest that relationship dynamics and adolescents' delinquent behaviors play an important role in adolescents' information management.

Sexual Exploitations, Concealment and Adolescent Mothers’ Agency in a Semiurban Community in Southwest Nigeria

Adolescent motherhood in many sub-Saharan African countries has remained daunting. Motherhood at this stage is often frustrating. This article examines the invisibility of adolescent motherhood and their agency within the Yoruba sociocultural context. With empirical data from 19 semistructured interviews with adolescent mothers (15–20 years), the findings revealed a continuum of struggles for the adolescent mothers as reflected in the stigmatization of adolescents’ sexuality and uninformed sexual negotiations. However, pregnancy incident became a vehicle for defining their social identity and access to available opportunities. Concerns for conformity were evident in the desperation to terminate unplanned pregnancy or contraction of emergency traditional wedding ceremonies to minimize social stigma. Pregnancy occurrence was insufficient to sustain a marriage as some of the adolescent mothers left their partners shortly after child delivery. Against the demanding conditions and inadequate support, the participants expressed fears over the plausible consequences of their past and present on their future and that of their children. To overcome this fear, some of the participants engaged in economic activities backed with prayers and resilience in empowering themselves and ensuring that their children become educated. These self-initiatives have achieved little in assisting adolescent mothers to renegotiate their social positions. Initiatives that will recognize adolescent mothers’ agency at all levels could minimize the burden of early motherhood on their psychosocial well-being and that of their children.

Latina Mothers’ and Daughters’ Expectations for Autonomy at Age 15 (La Quinceañera)

American children gain more autonomy as they progress through adolescence, however, autonomy-granting for Latina adolescent girls from immigrant families is a relatively unexplored question. In this study, we identified behaviors that Mexican mothers and their daughters deemed to be appropriate when they reach the age of La Quinceañera, a cultural rite of passage at age 15. Daughters hoped for rules regarding social activities to become less strict whereas mothers intended to continue to exert control, especially in the areas of peer and social activities, household duties, and homework responsibilities. The mothers were open to granting more independence in personal areas such as physical appearance and they were also willing to allow their daughters to group date. Although the mothers and daughters expected the mothers to continue to engage in a controlling and protective parenting style, both mothers and daughters anticipated more mutual decision-making and open communication when daughters turned 15 years of age.

Does adolescents' disclosure to their parents matter for their academic adjustment?

The role of adolescents' disclosure to their parents in their academic adjustment was examined in a study of 825 American and Chinese adolescents (mean age = 12.73 years). Four times over the seventh and eighth grades, adolescents reported on their spontaneous disclosure of everyday activities to their parents, the quality of their relationships with their parents, and their parents' autonomy support and control. Information about multiple dimensions of adolescents' academic adjustment (e.g., learning strategies, autonomous vs. controlled motivation, and grades) was also obtained. Both American and Chinese adolescents' disclosure predicted their enhanced academic adjustment over time. However, when American adolescents disclosed in a negative context (e.g., a poor parent-child relationship or controlling parenting), their autonomous (vs. controlled) motivation was undermined.

Puerto Rican adolescents' disclosure and lying to parents about peer and risky activities: associations with teens' perceptions of Latino values

Disclosure and lying to mothers and fathers about different activities, as defined within social domain theory, were examined as a function of Latino family values in 109 Puerto Rican lower socioeconomic status middle adolescents (M=15.58 years, SD=1.18) living in the United States. Questionnaires revealed that teens sometimes disclosed to parents about their risky prudential (unhealthy or unsafe) and peer activities. Lying was infrequent, although greater for risky than for peer issues. In general, path analyses demonstrated that teens' greater adherence to Latino family values and trust in parents were associated with more disclosure and less lying to mothers. However, these findings were moderated by the type of issue considered and perceptions of parents' Latino family values.

Introduction to special issue. Careful conversations: adolescents managing their parents' access to information

Stattin and Kerr's (2000; Kerr & Stattin, 2000) seminal work challenged our understanding of parental monitoring, shifted attention to adolescents' agency as information managers, and pushed researchers to focus more on their measures and to think more about the interactional and relational processes that keep, or fail to keep, parents informed. Spurred by this reinterpretation of "parental monitoring", research has shifted in the last decade from a nearly exclusive focus on parents' role in socializing adolescents through monitoring their whereabouts, friendships, and activities, to a broader recognition of, and appreciation for, adolescents' active role in strategically managing their parents' access to information. This special issue showcases this new perspective by gathering a set of studies focusing collectively on a wide variety of information management strategies and exploring bidirectional links with indicators of youths' psychosocial adjustment and parent-child relationship qualities.

What parents don't know and how it may affect their children: qualifying the disclosure-adjustment link

Recent research has identified adolescent disclosure to parents as a powerful predictor of adolescent adjustment. We propose, however, that the common operationalization of adolescent disclosure incorporates the two separate constructs of disclosure and secrecy, and predicted that the disclosure-adjustment link can largely be explained by the unique contribution of secrecy from parents. A four-wave survey study among 309 adolescents tested these predictions. Factor analyses confirmed that disclosure and secrecy should be distinguished as two separate constructs. Moreover, in cross-lagged path analyses, only secrecy was a longitudinal predictor of adolescent internalizing (i.e., depression) and externalizing (i.e., delinquency) problems, disclosure was not. Secrecy consistently contributed to the longitudinal prediction of delinquency from early to middle adolescence, whereas it contributed to the prediction of depression only in early adolescence. Findings thus attest the importance of distinguishing between disclosure and secrecy and suggest that the disclosure-adjustment link may actually reflect a secrecy-maladjustment link.