Parental Rules Research Articles

Implications of the family expert role for parental rules regarding adolescent use of social technologies

We conducted individual semi-structured qualitative interviews with a diverse group of 40 adolescents to assess their perceptions related to (a) the location of expert power within their families with respect to social technology use (cell phones and social networking sites) and (b) the implications of such power for parental rule setting and enforcement related to adolescent use of these technologies. Results indicated substantial variability in who adolescents perceived to be the family experts. Rules regarding access to social technologies existed in most families regardless of the technology type and regardless of whether parents or youth were perceived as technology experts. In contrast, family expert status had implications for the types of content rules that parents set regarding adolescents’ use of social technologies and the manner in which such rules were enforced.

Perpetuating Traveller children’s educational disadvantage in Ireland

The impact of ‘subtle’ admission policies utilized by many secondary schools in Ireland on children from minority groups has been recently flagged as problematic by the Irish Department of Education. A new regulatory framework has been promised to address this issue but has yet to emerge. In the meantime, such policies, which include preferential parental legacy rules, certainly trigger the reconfigured principle of indirect discrimination in the access to and enjoyment of goods and services under the Equal Status Acts 2000–2012, which transpose a number of EU Equality Directives. This article considers the approaches taken to the demonstration of how suspect policies give rise to ‘particular disadvantage’ for protected groups in light of the shift away from the mandatory use of statistical evidence in the context of a discussion of a recent High Court case, Stokes v. Christian Brothers High School. This decision concerned the impact of a parental legacy rule on a child from Ireland’s Traveller community, a community that has a long and virulent history of educational (and other forms of) disadvantage. In response to the limited understanding of indirect discrimination taken in the High Court (which pivoted on the Oxford English Dictionary), which significantly undermines the principle’s ability to tackle structural inequalities, I go on to demonstrate how use of both the ‘social facts’ approach and a statistical approximation of the impact of the policy on the complainant’s group reveals ‘particular disadvantage’ in the use of legacy rules on Traveller children, children of migrants and children raised in non-traditional families.

Socio-economic inequalities in children's snack consumption and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption: the contribution of home environmental factors.

In the present study, we examined the association between maternal education and unhealthy eating behaviour (the consumption of snack and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB)) and explored environmental factors that might mediate this association in 11-year-old children. These environmental factors include home availability of snacks and SSB, parental rules about snack and SSB consumption, parental intake of snacks and SSB, peer sensitivity and children's snack-purchasing behaviour. Data were obtained from the fourth wave of the INPACT (IVO Nutrition and Physical Activity Child cohorT) study (2011), in which 1318 parent-child dyads completed a questionnaire. Data were analysed using multivariate regression models. Children of mothers with an intermediate educational level were found to consume more snacks than those of mothers with a high educational level (B= 1·22, P= 0·02). This association was not mediated by environmental factors. Children of mothers with a low educational level were found to consume more SSB than those of mothers with a high educational level (B= 0·63, P< 0·01). The association between maternal educational level and children's SSB consumption was found to be mediated by parental intake of snacks and SSB and home availability of SSB. The home environment seems to be a promising setting for interventions on reducing socio-economic inequalities in children's SSB consumption.

Adolescent–Parent Relations in Asian Indian and Salvadoran Immigrant Families: A Cultural–Developmental Analysis of Autonomy, Authority, Conflict, and Cohesion

From a cultural perspective, this study addressed the two developmental theories that adolescents want more autonomy and fewer parental rules than parents consider appropriate, and that discrepancy between adolescents and parents on views of autonomy and authority result in decreased cohesion and increased conflict. The study included 100 adolescent–parent dyads who were immigrants to the United States from El Salvador and India. While findings pointed to cross‐cultural commonalities, such as autonomy seeking among adolescents, they also highlighted the importance of culture to different meanings of autonomy and the limits of the discrepancy thesis. The discussion calls for future scholarship to include concepts of salience to diverse groups such as family interdependence and appreciation for the parental immigrant experience.

Mining Rare Associations between Biological Ontologies

The constantly increasing volume and complexity of available biological data requires new methods for their management and analysis. An important challenge is the integration of information from different sources in order to discover possible hidden relations between already known data. In this paper we introduce a data mining approach which relates biological ontologies by mining cross and intra-ontology pairwise generalized association rules. Its advantage is sensitivity to rare associations, for these are important for biologists. We propose a new class of interestingness measures designed for hierarchically organized rules. These measures allow one to select the most important rules and to take into account rare cases. They favor rules with an actual interestingness value that exceeds the expected value. The latter is calculated taking into account the parent rule. We demonstrate this approach by applying it to the analysis of data from Gene Ontology and GPCR databases. Our objective is to discover interesting relations between two different ontologies or parts of a single ontology. The association rules that are thus discovered can provide the user with new knowledge about underlying biological processes or help improve annotation consistency. The obtained results show that produced rules represent meaningful and quite reliable associations.

A longitudinal study of children's outside play using family environment and perceived physical environment as predictors.

BackgroundA natural and cheap way of increasing children’s physical activity is stimulating unstructured outside play.PurposeThis study examined whether characteristics of the family and perceived physical environment were associated with the duration of children’s outside play.MethodsParents participating in the “Be Active, Eat Right” cluster RCT control group (N = 2007) provided information on potential predictors of outside play (i.e. family and perceived physical environment) of their 5-year-old child by questionnaire. Child outside play was assessed by parental reports both at five and seven years. Linear regression analyses, adjusted for seasonality, were performed to evaluate associations between potential predictors and child outside play. Linear mixed models were fitted to evaluate the relationship between potential predictors and the development of outside play over two years, with season entered as a random factor.ResultsFamily environment was the strongest construct predicting child outside play, while parent perceived physical environment had no significant association with child outside play. Parental habit strength and the presence of rules were the strongest predictors of increased outside play. Parent perceived difficulty in improving child outside play was the strongest predictor of decreased outside play.ConclusionFamily environment predicted child outside play and not perceived physical environment. Parental rules and habit strength regarding improving outside play were associated with an improvement of child’s engagement in outside play.

Alcohol-Specific Parenting, Adolescents' Self-Control, and Alcohol Use: A Moderated Mediation Model

There is convincing evidence that parental rules about alcohol are important in curbing adolescents' alcohol use. However, little is known about the mechanisms through which the direct link between alcohol-specific parenting and alcohol use is obtained. In this study, we investigated the mediating effect of adolescent self-control on the relationship between alcohol-specific rules and adolescents' drinking behavior and whether this mediation effect depends on the level of quality of communication. A total of 883 adolescents participated in this longitudinal study at ages 13, 14, and 15 years. Strict rules predicted lower rates of drinking, but no direct effect of the quality of communication on adolescents' alcohol use was found. A higher level of self-control was related to lower rates of drinking in adolescents. The indirect effect of rules about alcohol through adolescents' self-control was statistically significant, yet only in adolescents with high qualitative parent-child communication about alcohol. In adolescents with low quality of parent-child communication, self-control was not related to drinking. These findings imply that strict rule setting in combination with qualitative parent-child communication is an important target for prevention. In addition, findings point at the importance of high qualitative parent-child communication for adolescents' motivation to engage in self-control to avoid drinking.

Longitudinal associations between adolescent perceived degree and style of parental prohibition and internalization and defiance.

This study examined associations between perceived degree and style of parental prohibition and adolescents' internalization of and oppositional defiance against parental rules in the friendship and moral domain. Relations were investigated in 2 longitudinal adolescent samples (total N = 532). Results indicated that perceived style but not degree of prohibition related to overtime changes in internalization and oppositional defiance. Specifically, in line with self-determination theory, autonomy-supportive and controlling styles of prohibiting were found to relate differentially to quality of internalization and oppositional defiance. Cross-lagged analyses indicated that several of these associations were reciprocal. The discussion focuses on the critical role of perceived parental style for communicating prohibitions.

Time 2 tlk 2nite: Use of Electronic Media by Adolescents during Family Meals and Associations with Demographic Characteristics, Family Characteristics, and Foods Served

We examined the frequency of adolescents' use of electronic media (ie, television/movie watching, text messaging, talking on the telephone, listening to music with headphones, and playing with hand-held games) at family meals and examined associations with demographic characteristics, rules about media use, family characteristics, and the types of foods served at meals using an observational, cross-sectional design. Data were drawn from two coordinated, population-based studies of adolescents (Project Eating Among Teens 2010) and their parents (Project Families and Eating Among Teens). Surveys were completed during 2009-2010. Frequent television/movie watching during family meals by youth was reported by 25.5% of parents. Multivariate logistic regression analyses indicated significantly higher odds of mealtime media use (P<0.05) for girls and older teens. In addition, higher odds of mealtime media use (P<0.05) were also seen among those whose parents had low education levels or were black or Asian; having parental rules about media use significantly reduced these odds. Frequent mealtime media use was significantly associated with lower scores on family communication (P<0.05) and scores indicating less importance placed on mealtimes (P<0.001). Furthermore, frequent mealtime media use was associated with lower odds of serving green salad, fruit, vegetables, 100% juice, and milk at meals, whereas higher odds were seen for serving sugar-sweetened beverages (P<0.05). The ubiquitous use of mealtime media by adolescents and differences by sex, race/ethnicity, age, and parental rules suggest that supporting parents in their efforts to initiate and follow-through on setting mealtime media use rules may be an important public health strategy.

Impact of Family Level Factors on Alcohol Drinking in Primary School Children

The aim of our study was to identify and analyze selected factors influencing alcohol use among primary school children aged 8 to 15 years in the academic year 2009/10. The sample consisted of children from 28 primary schools. Data of this cross-sectional study were collected using questionnaires. Chi-Square test was used to test differences in proportions of observed phenomena between boys and girls. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the influence of selected factors on the variable "child's alcohol drinking per week". The sample consisted of 2,494 respondents (52% of boys, 48% of girls). In the study group 78% of all respondents (95% CI=76-80) drank alcohol infrequently (less than once a week) or did not drink alcohol at all, and 22% of respondents (95% Cl=20-24) drank alcohol at least once a week. More boys than girls considered alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine and spirit as quite easily available. We performed the model of multivariate logistic regression analysis using the independent variables: age of respondents, gender of respondents, mother's alcohol drinking, father's alcohol drinking, sibling's alcohol drinking, parental rules, parental control, and mental support from parents (if their children have problems) to identify their effect on the dependent variable - child's alcohol drinking per week. We found out that mother's alcohol drinking and a lack of mental support from parents did not have a statistically significant influence on child's alcohol drinking per week. The results of our study point to the fact that it is necessary to focus on the prevention of alcohol drinking in general and among school children in particular. We recommend greater control of the sale of alcoholic beverages, so as to prevent the purchase by people under 18 years of age.

Lack of Parental Rules for Cell Phone Use among Low Income Mexican Descendent Adolescents

Youth have access to and utilize various types of technology at a growing rate. Cell phones are a portable way for adolescents to remain in constant contact with friends, parents, and others. While White youth are more likely to have a cell phone compared to Latino youth, the trends for cell phone use are similar among all teens with text messaging serving as the most popular means of communication. Despite their high volume of communication with others via cell phones, adolescents are likely to have little or no adult supervision while using technology. With a lack of parental supervision or awareness regarding youth technology use, adolescents may be especially vulnerable to cyberbullying and other negative health impacts. The current study investigates cell phone and texting use among a community sample of Latino adolescents and examines how parental rules regarding cell phone use influences adolescents’ cell phone and texting behaviors.

Triple tobacco screen: opportunity to help families become smokefree.

American Academy of Pediatrics policy recommends that pediatricians document environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure of a child at every visit. The extent to which pediatricians adhere to this policy, however, is unknown. The goal of the study was to examine the extent to which pediatricians screen parents for tobacco use and home- and car-related smoking rules. Further, the potential association between factors associated with pediatrician inquiry into parental tobacco use and rules is examined. Post-visit exit interviews were conducted in ten pediatric practices between June 2009 and March 2011 with parents whose children had been seen by a healthcare provider. Parents were considered to have been given the "triple tobacco screen" if they reported being asked by a pediatric healthcare provider about their smoking behavior, smokefree home rules, and smokefree car rules. Bivariate analysis and multivariable logistic regression was done to explore factors associated with parents being given any component of the triple tobacco screening. Data were analyzed between March 2012 and February 2013. Of 9145 parents interviewed, 20% of the parents reported being asked at least one question from the triple tobacco screen, and only 9% reported being asked all three questions. Overall, 17% of parents reported being asked about their smoking status, 16% about smokefree home rules, and 11% about smokefree car rules. Few smoking parents (23%) and fewer nonsmoking parents (19%) were screened about their tobacco use and behavior. Pediatricians infrequently addressed ETS exposure of children among parents who do and do not smoke. Substantial missed opportunities may exist to counsel smokers and reduce ETS exposure of children in the most common exposure locations-the home and car.

Alcohol Use and Related Behaviors Among Late-Adolescent Urban Youths: Peer and Parent Influences

Peer and parent influences on alcohol use and related risky behaviors were examined in a sample of late-adolescent (M = 17.3 years; SD = 1.11 years) urban youths. Participants (N = 400) completed an online measure assessing peer influences of alcohol use and alcohol offers and also parental influences of rules against alcohol use and perceived levels of emotional family support, relative to youths' alcohol use, binge drinking, alcohol-related consequences, and intentions to drink. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that increased peer alcohol use and alcohol offers were associated with youths' increased drinking, binge drinking, alcohol-related consequences, and intentions to drink. Controlling for peer influences, parental rules against alcohol use were associated with decreased drinking, binge drinking, and intentions to drink; increased levels of family support were associated with decreased alcohol-related consequences and intentions to drink. These findings suggest that parental influences, albeit small relative to peer influences, are associated with fewer instances of monthly alcohol use and related risky behaviors among late-adolescent urban youths.

Different Trajectories of Adolescent Alcohol Use: Testing Gene–Environment Interactions

Transitions into heavy alcohol use often already take place during adolescence and are likely to be both genetically and environmentally determined. Therefore, in a 6-wave longitudinal study, we examined the effects of DRD2 Taq1A and OPRM1 A118G genotypes and the interaction with parental rule-setting on different groups of adolescent drinkers. Growth mixture modeling resulted in 3 distinct groups of adolescent drinkers: light drinkers (n=346), moderate drinkers (n=178), and heavy drinkers (n=72). Multinomial regression showed that moderate drinkers carried the OPRM1 G allele and received lower levels of parental rule-setting significantly more often than the light drinking group. No other significant main effects of DRD2, OPRM1, and rule-setting were found. The interaction between OPRM1 genotype and parental rule-setting significantly distinguished the heavy drinkers from the light (p<0.001) and moderate groups (p=0.055): Particularly, the alcohol use of OPRM1 G allele carriers was affected by parental rule-setting, while AA genotype carriers remained largely unaffected by parental rules. Findings showed that different trajectories of adolescent drinking are preceded by a gene-parenting interaction. These results concur with Belsky's theory of plasticity (2009), as well as with Shanahan and Hofer's typology of a controlling and restricting gene-environment interaction (2005).

Video game access, parental rules, and problem behavior: A study of boys with autism spectrum disorder

Environmental correlates of problem behavior among individuals with autism spectrum disorder remain relatively understudied. The current study examined the contribution of in-room (i.e. bedroom) access to a video game console as one potential correlate of problem behavior among a sample of 169 boys with autism spectrum disorder (ranging from 8 to 18 years of age). Parents of these children reported on (1) whether they had specific rules regulating their child's video game use, (2) whether their child had in-room access to a variety of screen-based media devices (television, computer, and video game console), and (3) their child's oppositional behaviors. Multivariate regression models showed that in-room access to a video game console predicted oppositional behavior while controlling for in-room access to other media devices (computer and television) and relevant variables (e.g. average number of video game hours played per day). Additionally, the association between in-room access to a video game console and oppositional behavior was particularly large when parents reported no rules on their child's video game use. The current findings indicate that both access and parental rules regarding video games warrant future experimental and longitudinal research as they relate to problem behavior in boys with autism spectrum disorder.

Alcohol intoxication and risk factors in adolescents

Although public interventions aimed at alcohol use among adolescents have been proven effective, individual follow-up of adolescents admitted with alcohol intoxication is uncommon. According to the ESPAD study, many European countries have to deal with a high prevalence of alcohol use amongst adolescents. Alcohol use has been associated with ADHD, autism, negative health behaviour, and neurocognitive damage. Parental rules are a major risk factor for alcohol use in adolescents. To psychosocially screen, educate and follow-up on adolescents admitted with alcohol intoxication. In January 2009 a protocol was implemented for the follow-up on adolescents admitted with alcohol intoxication. Screening for chronic alcohol abuse, underlying psychological disorders and social problems was done by the pediatrician and child-psychologist. Information on the dangers of alcohol use was given to adolescents and their parents. During 2009 and 2010 a total of 350 children were invited to the program, of which 204 were screened. Of the 16-year-old adolescents 61% stopped drinking, and 88,5% stopped binge-drinking at 6 months follow-up. In 82,5% parents reported to have implemented specific alcohol rules at follow-up. A total of 90% adolescents were screened with behavioral questionnaires, and 41,2% had psychosocial problems. In clinical practice, history taking of these adolescents revealed shocking stories on social, psychological or alcohol related issues. By informing adolescents and their parents during a clinical and outpatient setting the window of opportunity is widened and alcohol use can be decreased. Underlying social and psychological problems are frequent, serious and should be evaluated in adolescents admitted with alcohol intoxication.

Factors Influencing the Television Viewing Practices of Indian Children

To study the effect of socio-demographic factors, parental regulations and maternal television usage on the television viewing practices of Indian schoolchildren. Mothers of 6-12y old children were interviewed using a pre-tested questionnaire at the pediatric outpatient. The television viewing practices of 405 schoolchildren with maternal television viewing and parental television rules were analyzed. Specific television viewing practices considered harmful in the present study were- viewing television >2h, viewing television just prior to sleep (at bedtime), predominantly viewing general adult channels and using television as an aid to sleep. 35.8% (n = 145) of the children viewed television for >2h on schooldays. 20% (n = 81) used television as sleep-aid. 28.1% (n = 114) children had televisions in the room they slept. The frequency of parental television rules were with respect to: duration of viewing- 77.5% (n = 314), timing of viewing- 63.7% (n = 258), content- 35.6% (n = 144). The children of families with the rule needing of parental permission to switch on the television [present in 34.8% (n = 141) children] had lower harmful television viewing practices: duration of television viewing on schooldays >2h (23.4%, n = 33, P < 0.001); television viewed just before sleep (39%, n = 55, P < 0.001); use of television as sleep-aid (12.1%, n = 17, P = 0.003). 26.7% (n = 108) of the mothers viewed television for >2h. Linear regression analysis showed association between average television duration of children and average maternal television duration on schooldays (Beta = 0.246, t = 5.09, P < 0.001). Binary logistic regression analysis showed that harmful television viewing practices were significantly more in children with television in bedroom [OR = 7.49(4.19-13.38), P < 0.001]. It was reduced significantly by the parental rules on content viewed [OR = 0.41(0.23-0.72), P = 0.002]; need of permission to switch on television [OR = 0.31(0.18-0.53), P < 0.001] and a higher maternal education [OR = 0.29 (0.14-0.59), P = 0.001]. Lower maternal education, increased maternal television usage, presence of television in bedroom resulted in harmful television viewing practices among Indian children. The parental rules that were effective in countering these were the rule on content viewed and needing parental permission to switch on television.

The Relationship Between Parents’ and Children’s Television Viewing

To examine the effect of parental television viewing on children's television viewing compared with traditional predictors such as household television access, parental rules, and demographic characteristics of the child, parent, and household. An online survey using national samples of 1550 parents with children in 3 age groups (children ≤ 5 years, children aged 6-11 years, and adolescents aged 12-17 years), weighted to be representative of US parents with children in each age group. Adolescents (n = 629) of participating parents were also surveyed. Parent television time is associated with child television time and had a stronger relationship to child time than access to television in the home or the child's bedroom, as well as parental rules about television viewing and coviewing. This pattern persisted across all age groups of children. Educating parents about the relationship between their own and their child's viewing may be a useful strategy for interventions that aim to reduce children's excessive television viewing. Additionally, health professionals can engage parents in a discussion about how family television time is associated with increased television time for children.

Relationship between adolescent binge drinking and childhood alcohol use

In this issue of The Journal, Sanchez et al from the Universidade Federal de São Paulo have evaluated the hypothesis that childhood alcohol use may predict adolescent binge drinking in more than 17 000 high school students in Brazil. Logistic regression testing was used to evaluate the relationship between the first alcohol use and adolescent binge drinking. Adolescents who first used alcohol during childhood, as compared with those who only used alcohol at later stages, were more likely to engage in binge-drinking behaviors. They also had a pattern of heavy alcohol use and recent use of illegal drugs. The authors conclude that childhood alcohol use is a risk factor for the most dangerous patterns of alcohol use in adolescence, also noting an association with parental alcohol use. Article page 363▶ Childhood Alcohol Use May Predict Adolescent Binge Drinking: A Multivariate Analysis among Adolescents in BrazilThe Journal of PediatricsVol. 163Issue 2PreviewTo test the hypothesis that first alcohol use during childhood is associated with heavy drinking patterns during adolescence and with parental drinking patterns and parental rules about alcohol consumption. Full-Text PDF

Information management strategies within conversations about cigarette smoking: Parenting correlates and longitudinal associations with teen smoking.

The present study examined smoking-specific and general parenting predictors of in vivo observed patterns of parent-adolescent discussion concerning adolescents' cigarette smoking experiences and associations between these observed patterns and 24-month longitudinal trajectories of teen cigarette smoking behavior (nonsmokers, current experimenters, escalators). Parental solicitation, adolescent disclosure, and adolescent information management were coded from direct observations of 528 video-recorded parent-adolescent discussions about cigarette smoking with 344 teens (M age = 15.62 years) with a history of smoking experimentation (321 interactions with mothers, 207 interactions with fathers). Adolescent initiation of discussions concerning their own smoking behavior (21% of interactions) was predicted by lower levels of maternal observed disapproval of cigarette smoking and fewer teen-reported communication problems with mothers. Maternal initiation in discussions (35% of interactions) was associated with higher levels of family rules about illicit substance use. Three categories of adolescent information management (full disclosure, active secrecy, incomplete strategies) were coded by matching adolescents' confidential self-reported smoking status with their observed spontaneous disclosures and responses to parental solicitations. Fully disclosing teens reported higher quality communication with their mothers (more open, less problematic). Teens engaged in active secrecy with their mothers when families had high levels of parental rules about illicit substance use and when mothers expressed lower levels of expectancies that their teen would smoke in the future. Adolescents were more likely to escalate their smoking over 2 years if their parents initiated the discussion of adolescent smoking behavior (solicited) and if adolescents engaged in active secrecy.