Parental Monitoring and Adolescent Sexual Health Outcomes

Adolescents engage in risky health behaviors more than young children and adults. This risk taking is thought to be a result of biological and environmental factors influencing adolescent behavior. Teenagers' engagement in risky sexual behavior puts them at a higher risk for morbidity and social stress resulting from unintended pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections. This increased risk of morbidity emphasizes the public health significance of adolescent risk behavior. Parental monitoring has been identified as an important protective factor for adolescents' negative sexual health outcomes. However, the distinction between rule-setting and coercive discipline is critical in understanding the influence that parents have over their adolescent's risk taking behavior. Without recognition of the importance of a supportive and trusting parent/adolescent relationship, parental monitoring studies and interventions will be less effective in bringing about behavior change in adolescents and their parents. Perceptions of parental monitoring can vary greatly between adolescents and parents, and thus there is a need for a scale to measure actual parental knowledge of adolescent risk behavior. It is also important to consider the quality of parent and adolescent relationships when attempting to understand the effects of parental monitoring. As a result, the examination of barriers to parental monitoring and the nature of the parent/adolescent relationship are crucial for making a lasting positive impact on adolescent sexual health outcomes