Coming Closer in Adolescence: Convergence in Mother, Father, and Adolescent Reports of Parenting

• Published in: Journal of research on adolescence Vol. 29; no. 4; pp. 846 - 862
• Main Authors: Mastrotheodoros, Stefanos, Graaff, Jolien, Deković, Maja, Meeus, Wim H. J., Branje, Susan J. T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-12-2019; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Adolescent development; Adolescent mothers; Adolescents; Child development; Childrearing practices; Convergence; Empirical; Family support; Fathers; Mothers; Parent-child relations; Parental control; Parenting style; Parents & parenting; Perceptions; Teenage parents; Teenagers
• ISSN: 1050-8392; 1532-7795
• DOI: 10.1111/jora.12417

Parent–child relationships change during adolescence. Furthermore, parents and adolescents perceive parenting differently. We examined the changes in perceptions of parental practices in fathers, mothers, and adolescents during adolescence. Furthermore, we investigated if fathers', mothers', and adolescents' perceptions converge during adolescence. Following 497 families across six waves (ages 13–18), we investigated the development of parental support and behavioral control using mother and father self‐reports, and adolescent reports for mothers and fathers. We found curvilinear decrease for support and control. Parent–adolescent convergence emerged over the 6 years: those with higher intercepts had a steeper decrease, whereas correlations among parent and adolescent reports increased. This multi‐informant study sheds light on the development of parent–adolescent convergence on perceptions of parenting.