Parental Monitoring and the Prevention of Problem Behavior: A Conceptual and Empirical Reformulation

Research on parenting practices has revealed parental monitoring to be relevant to the safety of children (Peterson et al. 1993), the development of childhood antisocial behavior and substance use (Dishion, Li, Spracklen, Brown, and Haas, this volume), and academic achievement (Crouter et al. 1990). Parental monitoring, however, is not often the explicit target of even parent-focused prevention strategies. In this chapter, therefore, the authors focus exclusively on the construct of parental monitoring with respect to definition and developmental issues. In addition, measurement strategies and specific issues related to targeting monitoring in preventive intervention trials are discussed.