Parenting and Motivational Processes Associated with Problem Behaviors: A Study of Adolescents in Santiago, Chile

Background and Purpose: Considerable research in the U.S. has established that adolescent antisocial, aggressive, and attention problems negatively impact adolescents' ability to become productive members of society. However, little is known about the development of these problems among adolescents in cultures outside the U.S.. This study contributes to our understanding of motivation levels and parenting factors associated with adolescent problem behaviors using an international sample.

Methods: This study used cross-sectional data from the first wave of the Santiago Longitudinal Study, a NIDA-funded study of community-dwelling adolescents in Chile. The sample consisted of 757 community-dwelling adolescents in Santiago, Chile (Mean age=14, SD=1.2, 49% females). At the study site youth completed, 2-hr interviewer administered questionnaire with comprehensive questions on substance use, individual, peer, parenting, and family variables. The study's dependent variables were rule breaking behaviors, aggressive behavior, and attention problems assessed with the Youth Self Report (YSR) (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). The independent variables were the adolescents' age, sex, behavioral approach-drive and behavioral inhibition, parental monitoring, mother and father parenting behaviors, and family SES. The relationship between parenting factors and adolescent problem behavior were estimated using OLS regression models computed in STATA 10.0.

Results: Results revealed that rule-breaking behaviors occurred equally among boys and girls. Rule-breaking behaviors were inversely associated with adolescent drive (β = -0.26, p < 0.001), parental monitoring (β = -0.27, p < 0.001), and positive parenting by mother (β = -0.13, p < 0.001) and father (β = -0.11, p < 0.001). Aggressive behaviors, slightly more common among females, were significantly and inversely associated with adolescent drive (β = -0.44, p < 0.001), parental monitoring (β = -0.30, p < 0.001), and positive parenting by mother (β = -0.20, p < 0.001) and father (β = -0.15, p < 0.001). Lastly, attention problems, found equally among boys and girls, were significantly and inversely associated with adolescent drive (β = -0.20, p < 0.001), inhibition (β = -0.10, p<0.05), parental monitoring (β = -0.14, p < 0.001), positive parenting by both the mother (β = -0.11, p < 0.001) and father (β = -0.08, p < 0.001). No interactions by gender or age were observed. Strengthening an adolescent's motivation level and further helping parents improve their parenting skills may result in important reductions in adolescent problem behaviors among U.S. and international adolescents.

Conclusions and Implications:

These findings provide considerable confirmation of the cross-cultural nature of the relationship between parental factors and adolescent problem behavior. In addition, these findings can help practitioners think about ways to create interventions aimed at improving motivational levels among adolescents and enhancing parent-adolescent relationships. The strong protective effect of parenting found in this study further suggests that interested practitioners can design future interventions to include a parent-training component in which parents might be reminded of how important their relationship continues to be on the behavior of their adolescents and provide sessions to enhance parents' ability to monitor their adolescent's after-school activities.