NCJ Number
244801
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 43 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2014 Pages: 245-256
Date Published
February 2014
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study focused on the childhood to adolescence transition and sought to determine why some children are more compliant than others as well as why children comply more often with some of their parents' rules than with others.
Abstract
The current study focused on the childhood to adolescence transition and sought to determine why some children are more compliant than others as well as why children comply more often with some of their parents' rules than with others. Indices of parents' agency and children's agency were tested as predictors of compliance. Parent-based decisionmaking and parents' responses to expressed disagreement served as indices of parents' agency while children's beliefs regarding the legitimacy of parents' rules and felt obligation to obey rules served as indices of children's agency. Parent-child dyads (n = 218; 51 percent female, 49 percent European American, 47 percent African-American) were interviewed during the summers following the children's fifth (M adolescent age = 11.9 years) and sixth grade school years. Children who felt that their parents' rules were more legitimate were more compliant overall than were children who felt that the rules were less legitimate. Children compiled more with rules governing topics perceived to be legitimately regulated by parents, when parents made more decisions regarding the topic and when parents responded to disagreement by standing strong. Results were generally consistent across parents' and children's reports of compliance and across cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. At the transition from childhood to adolescence, only children's agency explained why some children are more compliant than others, but parents' and children's agency helped to explain why children complied with some rules more than others. Abstract published by arrangement with Springer.