Poster #138 - Associations Among Parental Privacy Invasion, Internalization of Values, and Child Disclosure and Secrecy

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

As children develop greater needs for privacy and autonomy, parental control and monitoring efforts that were previously accepted by children may be perceived as less legitimate and more intrusive in adolescence (Hawk et al., 2009; Kakihara et al., 2010). Adolescents may actively manage information about their lives from their parents in order to establish privacy (Tilton-Weaver, 2014). While much of the monitoring and child information management literature has examined the impact of different types of parenting on child disclosure and secrecy (e.g., authoritative parenting; Almas, Grusec, & Tackett, 2011), less is known about the processes through which parenting may impact child disclosure and secrecy. This study thus explored child internalization of values as the mechanism through which parental privacy invasion impacts child disclosure and secrecy.
Data were taken from Time 3,4, and 5 of the [project name masked for review] consisted of 448 children between the ages of 12 and 16 years at Time 3 (M = 13.3, SD = 1.05, 139 single-parent families, 52% male, 67% European Americans). Measures included scales of children’s perceptions of parental privacy invasion (α = .89; e.g., “My parent asks too many questions about what I do with my friends), general external (e.g., “I try to be nice to others because I’ll get in trouble if I don’t”; α range = .81-.82) and internal (e.g., “I try to be honest because I think it's important to be honest”; αs = .85) value regulation items, and child disclosure (e.g., “I tell my parent about my day at school”) and secrecy (e.g., “I keep secrets from my parent about what I do with my free time”; α range = .76-.77).
A preliminary path analysis was conducted while controlling all endogenous variables at the initial time point. The model fit was acceptable, χ2 (448) = 804.83, p < .001, CFI = .98, RMSEA = .056, SRMR = .043 (Figure 1). Results revealed that greater perceived parental privacy invasion was associated with lower levels of external and internal motivation and child disclosure. External motivation in turn was positively associated with child secrecy, while internal motivation was negatively associated with secrecy and positively associated with disclosure. Discussion will focus on the increased needs of child’s privacy and autonomy during adolescence and the implications regarding the parent-child relationship and child information management.

Authors

• Daye Son, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Laura M Padilla-Walker, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author