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International Journal about Parents in Education 2011, Vol. 5, No. 1, 46-55

Copyright 2011 by European Research Network about Parents in Education ISSN: 1973 – 3518

The Relationship Between Parental Knowledge and Adolescent Delinquency: a Longitudinal Study
Panayiotis Stavrinides
Department of Psychology University of Cyprus Nicosia, Cyprus

The purpose of the present study was to test the direction of effect in the relationship between parents’ sources of knowledge (parental monitoring and child disclosure) and adolescents’ delinquency. The participants were 157 8th and 9th grade students and their mothers, randomly selected from urban and rural areas in Cyprus. A six-month, twotimepoint longitudinal design was used in which adolescents completed the delinquency scale while mothers completed the parental knowledge questionnaire. The results of this study showed that child disclosure at Time 1 predicted a decrease in both major and minor delinquency at Time 2 whereas adolescent major delinquency at Time 1 predicted a decrease in child disclosure and parental monitoring at Time 2. Contrary to previous wideheld assumption, parental monitoring at Time 1 did not significantly predict a decrease in delinquency at Time 2. Keywords: Parental knowledge, Monitoring, Disclosure, Adolescent delinquency.

Introduction. While children go through the adolescent years their parents increasingly feel that in order to protect their youth they should try and gain more knowledge about their socialization. During the past decade however, several authors shifted their emphasis on the various facets of this knowledge gaining process (Stattin & Kerr, 2000; Crouter & Head, 2002; Laird, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2003). In what ways do parents consciously try to gain knowledge about their children’s whereabouts? How is active parental monitoring different from other sources of knowledge such as child disclosure? And more importantly, what kind of developmental outcomes (i.e.

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