Specifying the interrelationship between exposure to violence and parental monitoring for younger versus older adolescents: a five year longitudinal test.

Five waves of longitudinal data collected from 349 African American youth living in extreme poverty were used to examine the interrelationship between exposure to violence and parenting during adolescence. Semi-parametric group based modeling was used to identify trajectories of parental monitoring and exposure to violence from T1 to T5. Results from these analyses revealed: (1) a trajectory of declining parental monitoring for 48% of youth; and (2) four distinct trajectories of exposure to violence. Multivariate findings were largely consistent with the ecological-transactional model of community violence. Youth with stable and/or increasing trajectories of exposure to violence were more likely than youth with stable-low exposure to violence to have declining parental monitoring, but additional analyses revealed a similar pattern of findings for younger adolescents (age 9-11 T1), but no evidence of linkages between trajectories of exposure to violence and parental monitoring for older adolescents (age 12-16 T1). The theoretical and policy implications of these findings as well as areas for future research are also discussed.

Does parenting shield youth from exposure to violence during adolescence? A 5-year longitudinal test in a high-poverty sample of minority youth.

Five waves of longitudinal data collected from 349 African American youth living in extreme poverty were used to determine if parental monitoring shielded youth from exposure to violence during adolescence. Semiparametric group- based modeling was used to identify trajectories of parental monitoring and exposure to violence from T1 to T5. Results from these analyses revealed (a) about 52% of youth had a trajectory of hypervigilant parental monitoring and (b) two out of the five distinct trajectories of exposure to violence were low and/or declining over the 5-year time period. Multivariate findings indicated that (a) youth with a trajectory of hypervigilant parenting were 109% more likely to have middle-declining exposure to violence, but hypervigilant parenting was unrelated to stable and low exposure to violence T1 to T5. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings as well as areas for future research are also discussed.