Trinity Alleyne,1

Literature Review

Parent and Teen Relationships

“How does the monitoring and regulation factor of parent and teen relations impact
the teen's future relationships?”

HHS4U
Trinity Alleyne
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Abstract:
The relationship a mother and/or father shares with their child holds such significant impact and
strength. Parents will always do what is necessary to protect and take care of their child- no
matter the extent, like monitoring and regulating their behavior on and off the internet. The
world and the internet aren't the safest and friendliest place for teens but it is such a big part of
our world today that you can't get away from it. So to avoid the corruption of their child's mind
they use multiple methods to control their child's interactions, even with the possibility of ruining
their child’s chances of successful relationships.

Subtopic 1: The Importance Of Parent and Teen Relationships.

Parents are the first initial relationship the child will experience, this will be the primary example
to the child on how they should allow themselves to be treated as well as how they should treat
others. The treatment the parent has towards the child reflects on who they become greatly
simply by the practices they treat you, the language they choose to speak, and rituals that tend to
stick with you forever. Youth are encouraged to maintain a close relationship with their mother
and father as it allows them to have an outlet to go to when they go through dramatic moments
throughout their teenage years. When a child feels connected to their parents there's a greater
sense of trust, which allows the child to feel comfortable coming to them for advice as well as
steer them away from any negative behavior. A strong united family is very crucial during this
stage of their life as the relationship can deter or intensify the child's negative behavior.

Subtopic 2: Why do parents Monitor / Types of monitoring and regulations.

Parents naturally share this instinct within them to care and love for their children at all stages of
their life. This causes them to play their roles as an authority and go to a certain extent to protect
and regulate them out of love… and sometimes out of fear. Of course, this behavior becomes less
extreme as the child continues to age, but this is most common within preteens and teens in high
school. This is because they are at higher risk to participate in substance abuse, illegal activity,
sexual activity, display antisocial behavior, as well as associate with people of bad influence
which can be the cause of many issues. Parents tend to get involved in their children's private life
more when they notice their child pulling away, this is because of a common procedure called
premature autonomy that occurs once a child is given too much freedom and personal time. This
allows them to do things that may be wrong, leading them down the wrong path. Parents monitor
and regulate their child with the use of personal engagement, digital monitoring, as well as rules.
Parents use their authority to their advantage by asking questions and enforcing rules that they
have to follow. Some parents go out of their way to become familiar with their child's friends
and their parents, they do this to have an understanding of the type of friends their teen keeps
around them. Some parents tend to ask their teen questions to find out things, they often do this
before letting their child go out, after school, or just during free time to get an insight on what
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their child is up to. Digital monitoring is a method of supervision that is very important within
parents as technology plays a big part in all of our lifestyles, and is the main use of
communication and exploitation of our lives. Parents use this method by getting access to their
child's social media passwords, reading their messages, visiting the websites they visit, even
going as far as tracking their location. Also, It's common for parents to set rules and boundaries
such as curfews, the acceptable age for body modifications like piercings and tattoos, the use of
illegal drugs, and more. These rules vary depending on the parents as well as religious beliefs as
it plays a great part in the families morals. Generally speaking, the behavior of the child during
the early stages of psychosocial development has a great impact on the development into
adulthood. This can be an explanation as to why parents go to such extents to protect and steer
their children from certain things that will have a great cost.

Subtopic 3: Teen responses

Teens either respond positively or negatively towards their parents' choice of monitoring, and
this can create conflict between the child and parents damaging the relationship. In many cases,
children respond positively to this treatment as a study was conducted on both male and female
adolescents proved that monitoring reduced their involvement in negative behavior. Although for
many individuals, monitoring has steered children away from participating in drugs, violent acts,
etc, there's a handful of teens who are against this treatment from their parents as they find it
intrusive. Other parents are also against this treatment against children as they “believe that
children need to learn how to manage their online presence — what to say, share, download,
upload, and what not to say, share, and upload” (Alon Shwartz, 2020). Parents should focus on
strengthening their bond with their children rather than controlling what they do online, as it will
encourage the child to approach the parent if they see or do anything wrong online. Parents going
out their way to excessively checking their child's social media can be portrayed by their child of
a lack of trust, as well a failure to properly raise their kids on their part. It's common for
teenagers to rebel against their parents, usually between both boys and girls and their mothers as
they mature. In this case, parents may pressure their children right into the behavior they’re
trying to steer them away from, they will unintentionally encourage them to try or do things just
because they know their parents are against it. Having children living in a negative environment
will push the teen out of the house and to their peers who embody bad habits and traits. This will
allow parents to question themselves if they are truly building a lifelong relationship with their
child by monitoring their online behavior.

Subtopic 4: Discipline

Parents' response to disobedient behavior is very important to the development of the child and
their future relations. Parents regularly respond to their child's disobedience negatively, this is
usually due to their expectations they have for their children but it's very important that no matter
what parents are mindful of their words and actions. Parents respond to rebellion and
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disobedience by taking away privileges, reverse psychology, or seek support which are all
healthy ways to respond. Sadly, in some cases, parents tend to respond with verbal or physical
abuse which is very damaging to the child's psychological state. Their personality begins to
formulate from the ages 13-18 years old which explains the behavior they will display as they
continue to grow. Parents will often take away game systems, phones, activities in response to a
kid's actions. This will teach children that their actions will result in them not having the things
they enjoy and allow them to rethink their decisions. Also, parents may use reverse psychology
to encourage the teen to behave by acknowledging the child's good behavior, they do this by
gifts, compliments, extended curfew, etc. This makes the child realize that their good actions
work in their favor. Verbal and physical abuse are the two worst responses parents can have
towards rebellion, as they both can have such a great impact on the mental and emotional state of
the teen. The University of Calgary released research that stated “verbal abuse has lasting
psychological damage, far worse than physical abuse. Unfortunately, parents are not aware of the
impact that verbal abuse has”.Verbal abuse is as simple as criticism, insults, or comparison and
leaves the child questioning their worth, giving up on themselves, or to grow self-hatred. Teens
make mistakes and hope parents understand that as bad as the mistake may be the response has a
greater effect.

Subtopic 5: Health and wellness for future relations

Childhood is such a precious time for humans, not only does it hold all of the best memories but
it is the foundation of how we live during adulthood. Parent's monitoring and regulations may
have been a very minor part of a child's future relation no matter if they are romantic or not, as it
is the key to how they chose to interact, trust, and behave. Children who enter relationships after
a childhood of monitoring and regulation can benefit from how attentive their parents were as a
child, as it made them able to be more receptive to their partners as they know what love is, how
it feels, and how to express it. This raises their children to be very expressive and honest with
their feelings with the people they love and feel comfortable around.
On the other hand, some individuals can grow up to hold trust issues and use this behavior with
their future spouse and children as they will believe this is how you establish trust in others. This
can create conflict with their spouse as they may not be used to this treatment. Secondly, it was
stated by Dan Western that “Parent-child communication influences how open you are in future
relationships.”. This comes to prove that the stronger the communication factor of the
relationship between a parent and teen has resulted in less intellectual and behavioral issues
when the child reaches adulthood. Also, parents who are caring and loving towards their child
allows them to become a person who's not afraid to express love to the people around them. This
would benefit the relationship as the spouse would never feel a lack of love as well will feed off
this behavior and create an equal balance within the relationship. The relationship that a teen and
parent share is very unique and can make or break the teens future relationships.
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Conclusion:

Monitoring and regulation methods are not a negative way of parenting your children, but
knowing the impacts and limits is necessary as it can have both negative and positive effects.
Parents should always remember the importance of the relationship they have with their child, as
it comes first. With that being said, just because the parent observes their child with pure
intentions the teen may not always share the same perspective and respond in ways that require
discipline, which should be thought through thoroughly. The way parents respond can
permanently affect the children as well, Therefore, acting with caution is always the safe route
when parenting teens.

Annotated Bibliography:

https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.12313

The authors, Barbara A. Oudekerk, Joseph P. Allen, Elenda T. Hessel, and Lauren E. Molloy
examines child health and human development in depth. They were able to dissect how a child
acts and why as well as the development process. They study the psychological relatedness in
individuals from the ages 13,18 to 21 in Virginia to track the growth and development. They also
studied how the effect and behavior extend into adulthood from a young age.

Annotated Bibliography

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3306134/

The authors, Gregory M. Fosco, Elizabeth a. Stormshak, Thomas J. Dishion, and Charlotte
Winter
Examine the monitoring and regulation factors on middle school students and teens to study their
effect. They conduct a study sample between boy and girl in the grade 6-8 to test the factuality of
the parents monitoring impact. Which the results stated that monitoring did reduce problematic
behaviors.

Citation: APA format

Domestic violence: How verbal abuse affects kids? (n.d.). Retrieved July 26, 2020, from
https://www.secureteen.com/domestic-violence/domestic-violence-how-verbal-abuse-affects-
kids/
Doyle, K. (2014, October 29). Having controlling parents may affect later relationships.
Retrieved July 26, 2020, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-psychology-parents-
teens/having-controlling-parents-may-affect-later-relationships-idUSKBN0II1TO20141029
Fosco, G., Stormshak, E., Dishion, T., & Winter, C. (2012). Family relationships and parental
monitoring during middle school as predictors of early adolescent problem behavior. Retrieved
July 26, 2020, from
Shwartz, A. (2020, June 30). Why You Should Never Cyber-Snoop on Your Kids, According to
a Tech Expert. Retrieved July 26, 2020, from https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/monitoring-
kids-online-activity-doesnt-help/
Western, D. (2018, February 21). How Your Relationship With Your Parents Affects Your Life.
Retrieved July 26, 2020, from https://wealthygorilla.com/how-relationship-parents-affects-life/