influence of parental involvement in single-father, single-mother and heterosexual married two-parent family systems on adolescent internalizing and externalizing behaviors

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20002658

The purpose of this research is to identify any relationships between parental involvement, defined as parental monitoring, warmth, and communication, and adolescent internalizing and externalizing behavior, comparing adolescents of both biological sexes in two-parent, single-mother, and single-father families. Data are from a sample of 60 parent and adolescent dyads (20 two-parent, 20 single-father, 20 single-mother) taken from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) database Child Development Supplement II (CDS-II). Respondents were adolescent boys and girls ages 13-17 in grades 8-12 (mean age = 14.7, mean grade = 9.7) and the mean age of the parents was 43. Multiple regression and univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were performed to test the following research questions: 1) from both the parent and the adolescent perspective, are higher levels of parental involvement positively correlated with relative freedom from internalizing and externalizing behaviors among adolescents?, 2) are there differences between how parents and adolescents report parental communication, warmth, or monitoring and if so, do differences vary by family structure, biological sex of the adolescent, or the interaction between family structure (single-mother, single-father, heterosexual two-parent) and biological sex, and 3) is one type of family structure more likely than others to have fewer reported adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems, and if so, are any differences more significant by adolescent biological sex? The results of the present study support that single-father family structure and adolescent perceived parental warmth, monitoring and communication predict adolescent internalizing behaviors. Additionally, results support that adolescent perceptions of parental warmth and monitoring as well as parent perceptions of monitoring and communication predict adolescent externalizing behaviors. Further, results indicate that single-fathers reported lower levels of perceived parental warmth than did adolescents from single-mother and two-parent family systems.