J Youth Adolescence (2008) 37:168–179 DOI 10.1007/s10964-007-9185-3
ORIGINAL PAPER
Parental involvement in adolescent romantic relationships: patterns and correlates Marni L. Kan Æ Susan M. McHale Æ Ann C. Crouter
Received: 24 January 2007 / Accepted: 13 March 2007 / Published online: 12 May 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract This study examined dimensions of mothers’ and fathers’ involvement in adolescents’ romantic relationships when offspring were age 17. Using cluster analysis, parents from 105 White, working and middle class families were classified as positively involved, negatively involved, or autonomy-oriented with respect to their adolescents’ romantic relationships. Patterns of parental involvement were generally not associated with parent– offspring relationship quality at about adolescent age 13, but earlier parent–offspring relationship quality moderated the associations between parental involvement and adolescent romantic experiences at about age 18. Positive parent–offspring relationship quality buffered the effects of negative parental involvement, whereas poorer parent– offspring relationship quality was a more adaptive context for adolescents of autonomy-oriented parents. Discussion focuses on the importance of parenting practices in adolescent romantic relationships and the emotional climate of parent–offspring relationships as a developmental context for those practices. Keywords Adolescent romantic relationships Parental involvement Parental practices Parent–offspring relationship quality
M. L. Kan (&) S. M. McHale A. C. Crouter Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, S-113 Henderson Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA e-mail:
[email protected]
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Introduction An emerging body of research identifies family characteristics that are associated with adolescents’ romantic competencies and experiences in romantic and sexual relationships. Although the affective quality of adolescents’ relationships with their parents has been linked to adolescent romantic experiences (e.g., Gray and Steinberg 1999), specific parenting practices regarding adolescents’ romantic relationships have received less attention. This distinction between parent–offspring relationship quality (i.e., the emotional tone of dyadic exchanges) and specific parenting practices (e.g., discipline, monitoring) has been highlighted in conceptual frameworks on parenting (e.g., Darling and Steinberg 1993; Parke and Buriel 1998). The present study contributed to the expanding literature on adolescent romantic relationships by exploring patterns of parental practices vis-a`-vis adolescents’ romantic relationships (specifically, parental involvement in adolescent dating) and examining the correlates of those patterns, including both parent–offspring relationship quality and adolescents’ romantic relationship experiences. Family of origin influences on adolescent romance Research that examines parent–offspring relationship influences on adolescent romance is guided by two major complementary frameworks: attachment and socialization theories. Attachment theorists assert that early experiences with caregivers foster internal working models of relationships that children carry forward into close relationships later in life (e.g., Bowlby 1969). Therefore, securely attached children are expected to develop healthier romantic relationships as adolescents and young adults (Collins and Sroufe 1999; Feldman et al. 1998; Gray and
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Steinberg 1999; Scharf and Mayseless 2001). Socialization theories (e.g., Maccoby and Martin 1983) suggest that children learn, in the context of their experiences with parents, how to behave in relationships with others. In this way, parent–offspring relationships influence children’s interpersonal skills and behaviors. Parents’ warmth and control, for instance, are expected to help children develop the kinds of competencies that make them successful in intimate relationships (Conger et al. 2000; Gray and Steinberg 1999). Previous research supports both attachment and socialization predictions. For instance, adolescents’ attachment to and intimacy with parents have been linked, over time, to secure attachment and commitment to romantic partners (Collins and Sroufe 1999; Duemmler and Kobak 2001). Further, positive attributes of the parent–offspring relationship such as intimacy and acceptance are related to intimacy, satisfaction, and love in adolescents’ and young adults’ romantic relationships (Bryant and Conger 2002; Conger et al. 2000; Scharf and Mayseless 2001). Parent– offspring conflict and styles of conflict resolution also carry over into adolescents’ and young adults’ romantic relationships (Martin 1990; Reese-Weber and Bartle-Haring 1998). Although attachment and socialization influences are important, conceptual models of parenting also highlight parents’ direct management of youth’s social relationships (Parke and Buriel 1998). Unfortunately, in comparison to research on parent–offspring relationship quality, the potential implications of specific parental practices regarding adolescents’ romantic relationships have received little empirical scrutiny. Early studies of parental support of and interference in adolescent romance are inconclusive; whereas some studies found that parental support was positively related to youths’ involvement in, commitment to, and continuation of romantic relationships (Lewis 1973; Parks et al. 1983; Sprecher 1988), others found that parental interference was related to stronger commitment in adolescent relationships (Driscoll et al. 1972) or that parental support was unrelated to relationship development (Leslie et al. 1986). Although more recent investigations show links between parental supportiveness and autonomy granting and adolescent romantic and sexual experiences (Furman and Shaffer 2003; Longmore et al. 2001; Scharf and Mayseless 2001), most of these studies measure general parent–offspring relationship quality rather than parenting practices specific to adolescents’ romantic relationships. Furthermore, few studies have collected information about parental behavior from parents themselves. Researchers are beginning to examine parenting practices that are specific to adolescent dating (Levy 2004) and parents’ awareness of adolescent involvement in
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dating (Madsen et al. 2001). The implications of parenting practices such as communication about adolescents’ experiences, however, have been examined only in relation to adolescent risk and sexual behaviors (e.g., Longmore et al. 2001), not in relation to romantic relationship success and competence. Therefore, we turned to research on parental management of adolescents’ peer relationships to inform our hypotheses about how parenting practices may be linked to adolescents’ romantic relationships. Mounts (2000) identified several areas of parental management of peer experiences, including prohibiting, guiding, supporting, monitoring, and deliberate neutrality, and prior work documents implications of such practices for adolescents’ peer involvement, friendship quality, selection of delinquent peers, and susceptibility to peer pressure (Mounts 2000, 2002; Parke and Buriel 1998; Updegraff et al. 2001). Thus, although research on parental involvement in adolescents’ romantic relationships is limited, studies of parent–peer linkages imply that such involvement may be important. Parents’ concerns about their children’s friendship choices and activities motivate their involvement vis-a`-vis offspring’s peer relationships (Mounts 2000), and this work suggests that concerns about adolescents’ romantic experiences will direct parental involvement in these relationships as well. This study extends prior research to examine parental practices specific to adolescent romantic relationships. Whereas previous work has focused on mothers (e.g., Madsen et al. 2001; Mounts 2000), we examined both mothers’ and fathers’ involvement in sons’ and daughters’ relationships. Although Mounts (2002) did not find differences in parental management of peer relationships as a function of adolescent gender, some studies have found that parents (particularly mothers) are perceived to be more knowledgeable about daughters than sons and more restrictive towards daughters than sons (Block 1983; Sartor and Youniss 2002), and that parents exhibit a more authoritative parenting style toward daughters than sons, in general (Steinberg et al. 1992). Moreover, hypotheses about gender intensification during adolescence suggest that parents encourage autonomy in sons more so than in daughters and obedience in daughters more than sons, and that mothers and fathers are differentially involved with daughters versus sons (Hill and Lynch 1983). Therefore, we examined differences in parental involvement in romantic relationships by parent and adolescent gender. Some work has additionally found differential links between parenting practices and adolescent outcomes as a function of adolescent gender (e.g., Sartor and Youniss 2002); accordingly we included adolescent gender as a potential moderator of links between parental involvement and adolescent romantic experiences.
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The contextual role of parent–offspring relationship quality Darling and Steinberg (1993) described the emotional climate of parent–offspring relationships as a context within which parenting practices emerge and have implications for youth development. According to this framework, parent–offspring relationship quality and parental practices are not directly linked, but parent–offspring relationship quality moderates the effects of parenting practices on adolescent outcomes. Research supporting these propositions shows, for example, that authoritative parenting enhances the effectiveness of parental involvement for youth academic achievement (Steinberg et al. 1992). Mounts (2002) also found that the effects of parental guiding, monitoring, prohibiting, and neutrality on adolescents’ and their friends’ drug use varied as a function of parenting style. We grounded the present study in this conceptual framework in order to examine the differential impact of parental involvement in adolescents’ romantic relationships in late adolescence (about age 17) as a function of parent–offspring relationship quality in early adolescence (about age 13). Specifically, parent–offspring conflict and time together were examined as indices of relationship quality because they reflect the emotional tone and closeness of the relationship. Again, adolescent gender was included as a moderator of these interactions so that we could examine the extent to which parent–offspring relationship quality serves as a context for parental involvement for boys versus girls. Study goals and hypotheses Given the dearth of research on direct parenting practices regarding adolescent romantic relationships, our first goal was to describe parents’ involvement in adolescent dating, specifically parents’ concerns about their adolescents’ dating, their supportive and restrictive involvement, and their autonomy orientation toward adolescents’ relationships. Based on prior research, we predicted that parents would be more involved in daughters’ than in sons’ relationships, and we explored whether mothers were more involved than fathers. Finally, to test our expectation that parents engage in different combinations of involvement strategies, we examined patterns of parental involvement using cluster analysis. Our second goal was to examine the correlates of parental involvement in adolescent romantic relationships. We investigated whether characteristics of parent–offspring relationships (i.e., conflict, time spent together) in early adolescence were related to patterns of parental involvement 4 years later; drawing on Darling and Steinberg’s (1993) model, we hypothesized that the associations
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between parent–offspring relationship quality and parental involvement in dating would be weak. We also examined the links between patterns of parental involvement and adolescents’ romantic experiences, including romantic intimacy with a partner and perceived romantic competence, over a 1-year period. Based on extant research on parental management of adolescents’ peer relationships, we predicted that parental involvement that was positive and helped parents to obtain knowledge about their adolescents’ relationships, while allowing adolescents some autonomy, would be related to more positive romantic experiences, whereas high parental restriction would be related to more negative romantic experiences. These predictions accord with models in which parent–offspring relationships foster the capacity for intimacy in romantic relationships by balancing closeness and autonomy (Feldman et al. 1998; Scharf and Mayseless 2001). Our final goal was to examine the interactive effects of parent–offspring relationship quality and parental involvement in adolescent dating on adolescent romantic experiences. Based on evidence of links between parent– offspring relationship quality and romantic relationship quality, we predicted that positive parent–offspring relationships in early adolescence would be associated with more positive romantic experiences in late adolescence. Consistent with Darling and Steinberg (1993), we also expected that parent–offspring relationship quality early in adolescence would moderate the associations between parental involvement in dating and adolescent romantic experiences. Specifically, we hypothesized that the effects of positive parental involvement would be enhanced when parent–offspring relationships were already positive (e.g., low conflict, high shared time) and the effects of negative parental involvement would be augmented in previously poor (e.g., high conflict, low shared time) parent–offspring relationships. Moreover, we predicted that the effects of negative involvement would be buffered by previously positive relationship quality, and we examined the extent to which parents’ autonomy orientation was linked with better adolescent romantic experiences in positive versus poor parent–offspring relationship contexts. As no previous work has examined such interactive effects, our investigation of these latter interactions was exploratory.
Method Participants Participants were mothers, fathers, and firstborn adolescents from 203 families that participated in a longitudinal study of family relationships. Families were recruited through schools when the oldest child was in the 4th or 5th
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grade. Eligible families included always married couples whose two eldest children were no more than 4 years apart in age. Families returned postcards if they were interested in participating. Over 90% of families that returned a postcard and met the criteria agreed to participate. These families were primarily middle-class and working-class and resided in rural areas, towns, and small cities. Most (97%) were European American (3% were Asian American and Latino). The analyses include data from years 3 (adolescent age 12.82 years), 7 (adolescent age 17.34 years), and 8 (adolescent age 18.38 years), hereafter referred to as Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3. At Time 2 (2002), when data on parental involvement in dating were collected, median annual family income was $75,370.00 (SD = $46,216.13), parents’ average education was 14.73 (i.e., some college or post high school training; SD = 2.08), mean ages were 43.22 (SD = 3.97) years for mothers and 45.53 (SD = 5.09) years for fathers, and parents had been married for an average of 20.05 (SD = 2.50) years. Although the sample is not representative of U.S. families, it is generally representative of the racial and economic background of families from the region of the state where the data were collected (McHale et al. 2001). There was minimal sample attrition. Two families had dropped out of the study before year 3, leaving 201 families in the Time 1 sample for this study. A total of 10 families withdrew between Time 1 and Time 2 or did not participate at Time 2 and a total of 11 families withdrew between Time 1 and Time 3 or did not participate at Time 3. A logistic regression analysis with participation as a dichotomous outcome revealed no differences in participation as a function of family size and income, parents’ age or education, or parent–youth relationship quality at Time 1. The number of families included in the analyses was also dependent on adolescents’ romantic experiences. Given research documenting family and romantic relationship differences between heterosexual youth and lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth (e.g., Patterson and D’Augelli 1998), 5 families were dropped from analyses because offspring reported same-gender romantic relationships. Of the 186 adolescents available for analyses at Time 2, the parents of 114 (56 girls, 58 boys) reported that their offspring were involved in a romantic relationship either currently or in the past year, and data were collected from these parents on their involvement in adolescents’ relationships. Nine families were missing data from fathers because of death or divorce. Therefore, 105 families (51 girls, 54 boys) were included in analyses of parental involvement in romantic relationships. Of these 105 families, 85 adolescents reported that they were involved in a romantic relationship at Time 3 and reported on romantic intimacy with a partner. Therefore, analyses of links between parental involvement in dating and romantic intimacy are limited to these 85
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families. No differences were found between families that were included in analyses and those that were excluded with regard to family size and income or parents’ age or education. Adolescents in excluded families were about 5 months younger (M = 17.14, SD = 0.78) than adolescents whose families were included (M = 17.51, SD = 0.76), t(1, 184) = –3.28, p < .01. This difference probably reflects a greater likelihood of older adolescents to be involved in romantic relationships. Procedures Data were collected each year using two procedures. First, separate home interviews were conducted with mothers, fathers, and adolescents during which family members reported on family background characteristics (e.g., education, income, age), their personal qualities, and relationship experiences. At each home interview, human subjects procedures were reviewed and families were paid an honorarium for their participation. To obtain information about their daily activities, parents and youth also were interviewed by phone on seven evenings (five weekday and two weekend calls) during the 2–3 weeks following the home interviews. In this study, we aggregated adolescents’ reports across all activities and all calls to create a measure of how much time they spent with their mothers and with their fathers. Measures Parent–offspring relationship quality Conflict was assessed at Time 1 using mother, father, and adolescent reports of the frequency of conflict in 11 domains (e.g., chores, social life) using a measure adapted from Smetana (1988) and used in previous work on parent– offspring relationships (e.g., Tucker et al. 2003). Items were rated on a 6-point scale, and Cronbach’s alphas ranged from .77 to .85. Parent and adolescent reports were correlated, r = .38 for both mothers and fathers, so separate factor scores representing mother-adolescent and father-adolescent conflict were used in the analyses. Mother-adolescent and father-adolescent conflict were correlated, r = .74. Adolescents’ time with parents at Time 1 was calculated from the phone interview data by summing adolescent reports of time in all shared activities with mothers and fathers across all seven phone calls. Time with mothers and with fathers was correlated, r = .47. Parental involvement in adolescent romantic relationships At Time 2, parents were asked whether their adolescents were currently dating or whether they had dated within the past year. If so, mothers and fathers were asked about their
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concerns about adolescent romantic relationships and their supportive and restrictive involvement in and autonomy orientations toward those relationships. Given that this measure was designed to assess actual parenting practices regarding adolescent dating, we used parents’ reports to determine adolescents’ dating status; parents can only report about involvement in relationships that they are aware of. Concerns about adolescents’ dating were measured with 13 items developed by Darling (personal communication), which loaded on a single factor in an exploratory factor analysis. Supportive and restrictive involvement and autonomy were measured using items adapted from measures of parental management of adolescents’ peer relationships and items developed for this study (Mounts 2000, 2001; Updegraff et al. 2001). Subjected to an exploratory factor analysis with oblique promax rotation, these items loaded on three factors that represented supportive, restrictive and autonomy dimensions. All items were measured on a 5-point scale from not at all to very much/ almost always. Scale information and factor analysis results are shown in Table 1. Adolescent romantic experiences At Time 3, adolescents reported whether they were involved in a romantic relationship that had lasted at least one month either currently or within the past year. If they were (n = 128), they reported on romantic intimacy with that partner using a relationship intimacy measure developed by Blyth and colleagues (1982) and used in previous work to assess parent–offspring intimacy (e.g., May et al. 2006). One item from the original eight-item scale (‘‘How much do you want to be like your partner?’’) was deleted because it was not relevant for romantic relationships. On this seven-item measure (e.g., ‘‘How much do you go to your partner for advice and support?’’), Cronbach’s alpha was .85. Adolescents’ perceived romantic competence also was assessed at Time 3 using the five-item subscale of Harter’s (1988) Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (e.g., ‘‘Some teenagers feel that people their age will be romantically attracted to them, but other teenagers worry about whether people their age will be attracted to them.’’). Items were rated on a 4-point scale and Cronbach’s alpha was .81. Romantic intimacy and romantic competence were uncorrelated, r = .15, ns.
Results The results are organized around the three goals: (1) To describe parental involvement in adolescents’ romantic relationships; (2) to examine parent–offspring relationship
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qualities in early adolescence as predictors of parental involvement at age 17; (3) to assess parental involvement and the moderating role of earlier parent–offspring relationship qualities in relation to romantic experiences in later adolescence. Given our relatively small sample size, in combination with the hypothesis-testing nature of our analyses, we report effects at p < .10 and less (Whisman and McClelland 2005). Describing parents’ involvement We conducted a series of 2 (Adolescent Gender) · 2 (Parent Gender) mixed model ANOVAs, with adolescent gender as the between-groups factor and parent gender as the within-groups factor (see Table 2). Significant main effects for parent gender indicated that mothers were more supportively involved than fathers, F(1,103) = 71.14, p < .01, e2 = 0.40, whereas fathers were more restrictive than mothers, F(1,103) = 3.92, p = .05, e2 = 0.03. Adolescent gender effects revealed that parents reported more restrictive involvement in daughters’ than sons’ romantic relationships, F(1,103) = 3.97, p < .05, e2 = 0.03, and more autonomy with regard to sons’ than daughters’ romantic relationships, F(1,103) = 5.00, p < .05, e2 = 0.04. No significant interactions between parent and adolescent gender were found. Correlational analyses indicated that dimensions of parents’ involvement in romantic relationships were not highly correlated (rs ranged from .00 to .18 for mothers and from .08 to .20 for fathers), with the exception of concerns and restrictive involvement (r = .61 for mothers, r = .52 for fathers). These latter two scores were therefore summed to create an index of parents’ negative involvement. Next, we identified patterns in mothers’ and fathers’ negativity, support, and autonomy using cluster analysis. This strategy was used because, in line with a person-oriented approach, we predicted that profiles of parental involvement would be more meaningful than separate dimensions. Additionally, creating clusters reduced the number of variables included in analyses. We used the hierarchical agglomerative technique with the average linkage method, in which pairs of units are created based on their average similarity until all units (i.e., all individuals) belong to one cluster (Blashfield and Aldenderfer 1988). The index of similarity used was cosine, which emphasizes the scatter of scores on the variables (Blashfield and Aldenderfer 1988). Because cluster analysis is an exploratory technique, the number of clusters was chosen to represent theoretically meaningful as well as divergent patterns of parental involvement. Scores on the clustering variables were standardized to ease interpretation and eliminate level differences between variables.
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Table 1 Factor scores and subscale information for items measuring maternal (and paternal) involvement in adolescent romantic relationships Concerns Support Having a girl/boyfriend takes time away from family.
.75 (.73)
Having a girl/boyfriend takes time away from my child’s friends.
.79 (.76)
Having a girl/boyfriend takes time away from other important activities (e.g., sports, church).
.81 (.75)
Having a girl/boyfriend affects my child’s school work.
.72 (.74)
My child will get too serious about the relationship.
.81 (.75)
I won’t like my child’s girl/boyfriend.
.72 (.70)
My child’s girl/boyfriend might be too old for him/her.
.53 (.62)
Having a girl/boyfriend costs too much money.
.39 (.53)
My child might get involved with the wrong type of kids because he/she has a girl/boyfriend.
.73 (.74)
Holding hands or kissing.
.58 (.59)
Making out.
.59 (.63)
Sexual activity.
.55 (.57)
I worry that my child is just too young to have a girl/boyfriend.
.59 (.66)
I encourage my child to invite his/her girl/boyfriend over to our house.
.79 (.71)
I encourage my child to include his/her girl/boyfriend in family activities. I talk with my child’s girl/boyfriend.
.71 (.70) .73 (.75)
I try to meet my child’s girl/boyfriend.
.71 (.74)
I spend time talking with my child about his/her girl/boyfriend.
.55 (.58)
I try to meet the parents of my child’s girl/boyfriend.
.62 (.72)
I spend time with my child and his/her girl/boyfriend.
.80 (.60)
I include my child’s girl/boyfriend in family celebrations and special occasions.
.68 (.77)
I tell my child if I don’t like whom he/she has chosen for a girl/boyfriend.
Restriction Autonomy
.63 (.52)
I arrange family activities so my child can’t spend time with his/her girl/boyfriend.
.56 (.52)
I keep my child busy at home (e. g., doing chores, running errands, helping out) so he/she can’t spend as much time with his/her girl/boyfriend.
.77 (.84)
I encourage my child to spend time with family members rather than with his/her girl/boyfriend.
.54 (.65)
I limit the amount of time my child spends with his/her girl/boyfriend. I limit how much time my child spends talking to his/her girl/boyfriend on the phone.
.81 (.65) .67 (.43)
I tell my child that whom he/she has as a girl/boyfriend is his/her personal choice.
.85 (.68)
I tell my child to make his/her own decisions about whom he/she chooses as a girl/boyfriend.
.90 (.58)
I tell my child that who he/she has as a girl/boyfriend is his/her own business.
.65 (.71)
Cronbach’s Alpha
.89 (.90) .85 (.88) .73 (.71)
.75 (.71)
Mother-Father Correlation
.54
.15
A visual examination of the dendrogram revealed three groups that were substantial in size. The standardized mean scores on the clustering variables are shown in Fig. 1. To determine the extent to which the cluster solution differentiated between groups, a series of one-way ANOVAs with Tukey post hoc comparisons was conducted on the clustering variables. Differences between clusters were significant for mother’s negative involvement, F(2,102) = 14.75, p < .01, g2 = 0.22, father’s negative involvement, F(2,102) = 15.07, p < .01, g2 = 0.23, mother’s supportive involvement, F(2,102) = 14.97, p < .01, g2 = 0.23, father’s supportive involvement, F(2,102) = 27.36, p < .01, g2 = 0.35, mother’s autonomy, F(2,102) = 35.99, p < .01, g2 = 0.41, and father’s autonomy, F(2,102) = 7.55, p < .01, g2 = 0.13. Cluster 1
.42
.50
(n = 45) was characterized by high negative involvement, low supportive involvement, and moderate maternal and low paternal autonomy; we labeled this the ‘‘Negatively Involved’’ group. Cluster 2 (n = 37) was characterized by low negative involvement, high maternal and moderate paternal supportive involvement, and high autonomy, and was termed the ‘‘Autonomy-Oriented’’ group. Cluster 3 (n = 23) was characterized by low maternal and moderate paternal negative involvement, high supportive involvement by both parents, and low maternal and moderate paternal autonomy, and was named the ‘‘Positively Involved’’ group. A primary means of validating the patterns produced by cluster analysis is to replicate them (Blashfield and Aldenderfer 1988). In this study, the hierarchical three-cluster solution was replicated using an iterative
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Table 2 Means (SDs) for measures of mothers’ and fathers’ involvement in daughters’ and sons’ romantic relationships at adolescent age 17.3 (N = 105) Involvement Dimension Concerns
Support
Restriction
Autonomy
Daughters
Sons
Mean
Mothers
2.11 (0.69)
1.97 (0.60)
2.04 (0.65)
Fathers
2.28 (0.63)
2.02 (0.65)
2.15 (0.64)
Mean
2.20 (0.66)
2.00 (0.63)
2.10 (0.65)
Mothers
4.11 (0.63)
3.91 (0.79)
4.01 (0.71)a
Fathers
3.40 (0.73)
3.31 (0.78)
3.36 (0.76)b
Mean
3.76 (0.68)
3.61 (0.79)
3.69 (0.74)
Mothers
2.22 (0.68)
2.02 (0.73)
2.12 (0.71)a
Fathers
2.38 (0.54)
2.13 (0.71)
2.26 (0.63)b
Mean
2.30 (0.61)x
2.08 (0.72)z
2.19 (0.67)
Mothers
2.92 (1.01)
3.17 (0.91)
3.05 (0.96)
Fathers Mean
2.67 (0.74) 2.80 (0.88)x
3.01 (0.95) 3.09 (0.93)z
2.84 (0.85) 2.95 (0.91)
a,b
For each dimension of involvement, means with different subscripts within each column indicate significant parent gender differences, p < .05
x,z
Within each row, means with different subscripts indicate significant adolescent gender differences, p < .05
Fig. 1 Mean Standardized Scores for Maternal (M) and Paternal (F) Practices by Cluster
determine whether parent–adolescent conflict and time spent together at Time 1 were predictive of the Time 2 parent involvement patterns (see Table 3). A cluster · gender trend for father-adolescent time, F(2,103) = 2.45, p < .10, partial g2 = 0.05, and follow-up tests indicated that, at about age 13, boys in the Autonomy-Oriented group spent more time with their fathers than girls, but no other cluster differences or interactions were significant. Finally, a series of 3(Cluster) · 2(Gender) ANOVAs tested for differences in adolescents’ romantic experiences at Time 3 as a function of parents’ involvement at Time 2 (see Table 3). A significant cluster · gender interaction, F(2,84) = 5.41, p < .01, partial g2 = 0.12, indicated that boys in the Negatively Involved group reported lower levels of romantic intimacy than other boys. No other effects were significant. Parent–offspring relationship quality and parental practices
partitioning method, k-means. A cross-tabulation comparing the two clustering techniques revealed 67% agreement, and a chi-square test of independence was significant, v2(4, N = 105) = 66.48, p < .01. Correlates of parents’ involvement First, to identify potential confounding variables, background differences between the involvement groups were examined. A one-way MANOVA revealed no significant differences among the clusters with respect to family size and income, parents’ education, or parents’ and adolescents’ age at Time 2. A v2-test of independence indicated that the clusters did not differ in terms of the number of boys and girls in each. Next, a 3(Cluster) · 2(Gender) MANOVA was conducted to
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We next examined whether parent–offspring relationship quality moderated the effects of parents’ involvement on adolescent romantic relationships. Preliminary analyses revealed that parent–adolescent conflict and time together were not significantly correlated with romantic intimacy or romantic competence. The indices of parent–offspring relationship quality at Time 1 (adolescent age 13), the parental involvement clusters at Time 2 (adolescent age 17), and their interactions were then examined as predictors of adolescent romantic experiences at Time 3 (adolescent age 18) in multiple regression analyses using SAS PROC GLM. Through this technique, both continuous and categorical variables can be used as predictors, and categorical variables are automatically dummy-coded. Main and
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Table 3 Means (SDs) for Parent–Adolescent Relationship Quality (Age 12.8) and Adolescent Romantic Experiences (Age 18.4) as a Function of Cluster Membership (Age 17.3) Negative (n = 45)
Autonomy (n = 37)
Positive (n = 23)
Mother-adolescent relationship quality Conflict Time (hours per 7 days)
–0.01 (0.88)
0.11 (1.06)
–0.13 (1.04)
8.90 (4.14)
9.57 (5.59)
10.24 (4.28)
–0.04 (0.86)
0.17 (0.94)
–0.18 (1.08)
6.15 (4.22) 8.08 (4.59)
6.31 (3.03)x 10.23 (5.05)z
9.20 (3.71) 7.85 (5.15)
Father–adolescent relationship quality Conflict Time (hours per 7 days) Girls Boys Adolescent romantic experiences Romantic intimacy Girls
4.48 (0.59)
4.30 (0.68)
4.40 (0.49)
Boys
3.65 (0.58)a
4.17 (0.47)b
4.61 (0.36)b
2.74 (0.60)
2.79 (0.60)
2.77 (0.73)
Romantic Competence a,b
Within each row, different subscripts indicate significant cluster differences, p < .05
x,z
Within each column, different subscripts indicate significant gender differences, p < .05
interaction effects involving adolescent gender also were examined. Significant interactions were followed up with simple slopes tests within groups (Aiken and West 1991). Of the 8 possible interactions (2 relationship quality indices · 2 parents · 2 romantic outcomes), 4 were statistically significant and 1 reached trend level (a rate higher than chance). Changes in R2 values are reported as indices of effect size. Romantic intimacy A significant Cluster · Mother Conflict · Gender interaction, F(2,84) = 3.73, p < .05, DR2 = .06, revealed that for boys only, membership in the Negatively Involved group was associated with higher romantic intimacy in the context of lower conflict with mothers. A significant Cluster · Father Conflict · Gender interaction, F(2,84) = 6.20, p < .01, DR2 = .11, revealed that in the Autonomy-Oriented group, girls reported higher romantic intimacy in the context of lower conflict with fathers, whereas boys reported higher romantic intimacy in the context of higher conflict with fathers; these simple slopes were only marginally significant. Finally, as shown in Fig. 2, a significant Cluster · Mother Time interaction, F(2,83) = 3.98, p < .05, DR2 = .13, indicated that membership in the Negatively Involved group was associated with higher romantic intimacy in the context of higher time with mothers, but membership in the Autonomy-Oriented group was associated with higher romantic intimacy in the context of lower time with mothers.
Romantic competence A significant Cluster · Mother Time interaction, F(2,99) = 5.96, p < .01, DR2 = .11, indicated that membership in the Negatively Involved group was related to higher romantic competence in the context of higher time with mothers. In contrast, membership in the Positively Involved group was related to higher romantic competence in the context of lower time with mothers. The trend for time with fathers, F(2,99) = 2.43, p < .10, DR2 = .04, produced the same pattern of results, but simple slopes tests were not significant. In sum, these results tell a relatively consistent story: Adolescents whose parents were negatively involved in their romantic relationships had better romantic experiences in the context of previously high time or low conflict with parents than in the context of low time or high conflict with parents. To some extent, the reverse was true for adolescents whose parents were high in autonomy orientation: Staying out of adolescents’ romantic relationships may be the optimal practice when parent–adolescent relationship quality has been poor. For adolescents whose parents were positively involved, earlier parent–offspring experiences did not modify their romantic outcomes, with the exception of time with mother and romantic competence. Taken together, these findings suggest that parent–offspring relationship quality in early adolescence is an important context for parents’ subsequent involvement in adolescent dating relationships.
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Fig. 2 Parental Practices and Mother-Adolescent Time in the Prediction of Adolescent Romantic Intimacy (Prototype for Significant Interaction)
Discussion Whereas most research on family influences on adolescent romance explores the significance of parent–offspring relationship quality, this study is the first in this line of work to examine parental practices, specifically parents’ involvement in adolescent romantic relationships. Models of parenting include both parental socialization and direct parental management (Parke and Buriel 1998), and Darling and Steinberg’s (1993) framework, in particular, describes the emotional climate of parent–offspring relationships as a context that may modify the implications of specific parenting practices. In line with these conceptualizations, we found that neither parent–offspring relationship quality nor parental involvement alone, but the combination of parent– offspring relationship quality and specific parenting practices, may have important implications for adolescents’ romantic experiences, particularly intimacy with a romantic partner. In accordance with our hypotheses, parents were more restrictive toward daughters’ relationships and more autonomy-oriented toward sons’ relationships. As with other domains of development, parents may socialize their adolescents in gender-stereotyped ways regarding romantic relationships, such that they encourage greater conformity in daughters and greater independence in sons (Block 1983; Hill and Lynch 1983). Additionally, parent gender differences indicated that romantic relationships may be a domain in which mothers are more open and involved, whereas fathers are stricter. These differences require replication and further exploration, but highlight the importance of examining mothers’ and fathers’ parenting practices separately. Interestingly, dimensions of parenting practices were relatively independent, suggesting that parents may implement various combinations of strategies. The exception was that parents who were more concerned about their
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adolescents’ dating were also more restrictive: Parents’ concerns may prompt their restrictiveness, or personal qualities of adolescents or parents may drive this relation. Patterns of parental practices indicated that some parents were negatively involved, with low support and low to moderate autonomy, whereas other parents seem to take more of a hands-off approach, and still others are supportively involved with low to moderate autonomy. Although the separate dimensions of parental involvement varied as a function of parent and offspring gender, the clusters represented parents of sons and daughters equally well and mothers and fathers were mostly similar in their patterns of involvement. As predicted, the parental involvement patterns were not strongly related to earlier qualities of parent–offspring relationships. This lack of significant associations suggests, as predicted by Darling and Steinberg’s (1993) model, that parenting practices with respect to older adolescents’ relationships are not tightly linked to parent–offspring relationship quality early in adolescence. The emergence of romantic relationships during adolescence is a developmental novelty; according to Cairns and Cairns (1994), ‘‘Such novelties can reorganize existing patterns or create entirely new ones’’ (p. 244). Our data suggest that the interactions between parents and adolescents surrounding dating are novel, and not reducible to overall relationship quality. Because of their dyadic nature, romantic relationships also have emergent qualities that depend on input from both partners: How parents relate to their offspring as individuals may be distinct from their behavior regarding their offspring’s relationships. Similarly, but in contrast to prior work which has shown longitudinal links between parent–offspring relationships and adolescent romantic experiences (e.g., Collins and Sroufe 1999; Conger et al. 2000), the correlations in this study between parent–offspring relationship quality at about age 13 and adolescent romantic relationship quality at about age 18 were not significant. It is possible that change over time in parent–offspring relationships, which may differ across families as adolescents mature, is more salient to adolescent romantic outcomes. Alternatively, our measures of parent–offspring and romantic relationships may have been limited in their ability to capture the kinds of associations found in previous research. For instance, prior work has found that security of attachment to parents and romantic partners is correlated; this was a construct that we did not measure. Patterns of parental involvement also were not strongly related to adolescent romantic experiences one year later. Only boys’ romantic intimacy varied as a function of parental involvement. It is possible that when parents restrict their sons’ behavior, adolescents have fewer opportunities to learn about romantic relationships. Parents who
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are restrictive may also be less likely to provide support or guidance to their sons regarding the development of close romantic relationships. An alternative explanation for this finding is that parents who are negatively involved are more concerned about their sons because of sons’ characteristics, behaviors, or partner choices, which themselves are linked to sons’ low romantic intimacy. In any case, the negative implications of parental restriction that we found regarding boys’ romantic intimacy are consistent with research on parental involvement in peer relationships (Mounts 2002). It may be that, in contrast to peer relationships, parental involvement is not strongly associated with adolescent romantic experiences because adolescents’ romantic lives become disconnected from familial input as they get older. However, given that only about 24% of adolescents in our sample were out of high school and had left home by Time 3 and that we did find moderated associations linking parental involvement and adolescent romance, parental involvement likely remains important in later adolescence. Finally, the interactive effects of parent–offspring relationship quality and parental involvement generally support our hypotheses and point to the importance of the parent–offspring relationship as a context for parenting practices (Darling and Steinberg 1993). When parents were negative towards their adolescents’ dating, earlier positive relationship quality was linked to better adolescent romantic outcomes. Thus, positive relationship quality early in adolescence appears to buffer the effects of negative parental involvement in dating on romantic experiences, whereas poor relationship quality early in adolescence amplifies the effects. These results are consistent with the findings of Mounts (2002), which showed that negative parental involvement in peer relationships had more negative implications when parent–adolescent relationships were lower in warmth. In contrast, in the current study, when parents were more autonomy-oriented, adolescent romantic outcomes were sometimes better when parent–offspring relationship quality had been poor than when it had been positive. Leaving romance up to the adolescent may be a more adaptive practice in the context of a poor parent–adolescent relationship. This may be because adolescents who get along well with their parents expect them to be interested in their romantic experiences and look to them for guidance, whereas adolescents who do not get along well with their parents seek guidance from peers or other sources and respond positively when their mothers and fathers stay out of their romantic lives. These findings, particularly those regarding autonomyoriented parents, await replication as well as a closer examination of the processes involved. The results for romantic intimacy were more consistent than the results for romantic competence (i.e., significant interaction effects
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emerged in 3 out of 4 models for the former outcome but in only 1 out of 4 models for the latter outcome). It is possible that parent involvement in dating has stronger implications for adolescents’ actual relationship experiences than for their self-perceptions regarding romantic competencies; this conclusion should be tested in future research. Nonetheless, our study adds to the literature on the interactive effects of parent–offspring relationship quality and parenting practices by showing that such effects can be identified across development, and that the implications of parenting practices for emergent developmental phenomena must be understood within the context of the parent– offspring relationship history. Thus, although we acknowledge the limitations of making inferences based on null results, in this study our null results (i.e., the lack of associations between parent–offspring relationship quality and parental involvement and the lack of direct associations between parental involvement and romantic outcomes) may be substantively meaningful: They point to developmental novelties in adolescent experiences and highlight the interactive effects between parenting practices regarding adolescent dating and the overall quality of parent–offspring relationships for adolescent romantic experiences. We did not find systematic gender differences in the implications of parental involvement. That negative parental involvement was related to boys’, but not girls’, romantic intimacy may again reflect parents’ greater restrictiveness toward daughters and lenience toward sons (e.g., Block 1983); daughters may be better able than sons to develop intimate relationships in the face of parental restrictions. The three-way interactions that emerged were inconsistent and the follow-up tests were at times only marginally significant. Consequently, strong conclusions cannot be drawn about gender differences in the moderating effects of parent–offspring relationship quality. This study has taken important steps toward a better understanding of parents’ involvement in adolescent romantic relationships and suggests directions for future research. First, we studied White, working and middle class, two-parent families. There is evidence, however, that the implications of familial involvement in romantic relationships may differ for adolescents of different cultural backgrounds (Bryant 2006); the same may be true for adolescents of different socioeconomic status and family structures. Future work should be conducted using more socio-culturally diverse samples. Second, our analyses were limited to the adolescents whose parents reported that they were involved in romantic relationships. Our power to detect significant effects, particularly interactive effects and differences by adolescent gender, was limited by the number of youth who were dating. Larger samples may clarify whether effects are limited to certain outcome
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variables and whether gender differences are stronger than the ones we detected. Nonetheless, many effects that we found were small in magnitude, suggesting that power was adequate, but that unmeasured factors may play a role. Third, we focused on adolescents who were dating and ways in which their parents were involved. Future research should examine the practices of parents whose offspring’s involvement in romantic relationships is delayed. Along these lines, given our research design (i.e., parents and adolescents did not report on adolescents’ dating status in the same year), we were unable to identify parents who did not report on their involvement in adolescent romantic relationships because they were unaware that their adolescents were involved in such relationships. This may be an important group of parents to identify and examine in comparison with parents who are involved in different ways in adolescent dating. Fourth, it would be important to learn more about adolescents’ romantic partners, as parental involvement may vary in response to different partners’ characteristics. Finally, cluster analyses are inherently exploratory and sample-dependent. The patterns detected in the current study should be replicated with different samples. In addition, although creating patterns of involvement helped to reduce the number of analyses, it would be useful to examine the unique influences of different dimensions of parental involvement on adolescents’ romantic experiences. In sum, this study contributes to our understanding of family of origin influences on adolescent romantic relationships by integrating past work on the implications of parent–offspring relationship quality with analysis of parental practices that are specific to adolescents’ romantic relationships. The ways in which parents become involved in adolescents’ romantic relationships may be important for adolescents’ successful negotiation of these new experiences. Although parents’ involvement may not necessarily depend on the quality of their relationships with their adolescents, parent–offspring relationship quality earlier in adolescence may play a moderational role in the implications of parental involvement. We hope that the current study serves as a starting point for future research on parenting practices regarding adolescent romantic relationships. Acknowledgements We are grateful to the families who participated in this study. We thank Matthew Bumpus, Melissa Fortner, Kelly Davis, Aryn Dotterer, Heather Helms, Julia Jackson-Newsom, Ji-Yeon Kim, Mary Klute, Carolyn Ransford, Cindy Shearer, Corinna Jenkins Tucker, Shawn Whiteman, and Kim Updegraff for their assistance in conducting this study. This study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (RO1-HD32336), Ann C. Crouter and Susan M. McHale, co-principal investigators. Portions of this paper were presented at the biennial meetings of the International Association for Relationship Research, July 2006, Rethymno, Crete, Greece
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Author Biographies Marni L. Kan is a Ph.D. candidate in Human Development and Family Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. She is interested in romantic relationships and family processes during adolescence and adulthood, and the interplay between them. Her interests also include family-focused prevention research. Susan M. McHale is a professor of Human Development and Family Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on family relationships and gender roles, as well as differential socialization of siblings and sibling relationships. Ann C. Crouter is a professor of Human Development and Family Studies and Director of the Social Science Research Institute and Children, Youth, and Families Consortium at The Pennsylvania State University. She studies the interrelations among parents’ employment situations, family processes, and children’s and adolescents’ social development, as well as gender socialization in middle childhood and adolescence.
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