Longitudinal Associations Among Perceived Intrusive Parental Monitoring, Adolescent Internalization of Values, and Adolescent Information Management

Drawing upon the Self-Determination Theory of motivations, this 3-year longitudinal study examined whether adolescents’ perceptions of intrusive parental monitoring predicted adolescent disclosure and secrecy with parents through internalization of values regarding unsupervised daily activities. Sample consisted of 448 adolescents from the United States (Time 1 M age = 13.3 years, SD = 1.05, 52% male). Surveys were administered to adolescents every year across three time points beginning in 2009. An autoregressive model with time-ordered mediation analysis was tested. Higher perceived intrusive monitoring predicted lower adolescent internalization of values regarding daily unsupervised activities over time. Reduced internalization was associated with less disclosure and greater secrecy with mothers and fathers one year later, though the indirect effects testing mediation were nonsignificant. No parent gender differences were observed in the patterns of associations. The findings suggest that successful parent-adolescent communication processes include adopting autonomy-supportive parental monitoring strategies.