Urge parents to guide teens' cell phone use.

CHICAGO -- Clear parental expectations about adolescents' cell phone use can support family relationships, a survey of 196 parent-adolescent dyads shows.

Helping parents realize this can assist them in launching their adolescents toward adulthood, said Robert S. Weisskirch, Ph.D., of California State University Monterey Bay, Seaside.

It's estimated that more than half of adolescents now carry cell phones. The few studies that have been done suggest that they identify security or safety as the primary reason for using the technology, Dr. Weisskirch said in a poster presentation at a meeting sponsored by the Society for Research on Adolescence.

For this study, parent-adolescent dyads from across the United States completed separate questionnaires. Of these, 83% were white, and 80% of the parents indicated they were currently married or in a domestic partnership.

The dyads were identified as 13% fatherson, 11% father-daughter, 30% motherson, and 46% mother-daughter. All the adolescents were of high school age and included all four grades.

The teenagers rated 18 items on a variety of typical situations and circumstances in which they would have to call their parents, including "to ask permission to do something," "to ask for a ride somewhere or to be picked up," and "argue by phone." Parents answered the same questions, though they were reworded to reflect their perspectives.

Also, the adolescents rated 23 items on how often the parents call them for specific reasons or situations. Examples included, "to make sure you are where you said you would be," "to see how your day went," and "to ask what you want to eat." The same questions were given to parents.

Parents and their children also completed a 22-item measure of parental self-efficacy by rating their degree of confidence in doing each of the items. Additionally, the participants rated six dimensions of parenting: closeness, monitoring, support, communication, conflict, and peer approval.

For adolescents, calling their parents for social support and in response to monitoring was associated with support, communication, peer approval, family closeness, and successful monitoring, Dr. Weisskirch said.

From the parents' perspective, adolescents calling for social support increased parent ratings of communication and closeness in the relationship, while teen-initiated calls in response to monitoring increased parental ratings of support, closeness, and monitoring.

However, arrangements were likely to sour when parents initiated calls perceived by their children to constitute overmonitoring. Calls made to track schoolwork or calling when upset were associated with increased conflict, he said.

"For parents, it's a warning that, while you want to call your kids, you don't want to do it too often because that's going to create more problems," Dr. Weisskirch said in an interview.

He posited that adolescents want the autonomy to respond without the feeling of being monitored. However, adolescents who perceived an obligation to inform parents of their whereabouts have parents who have more parental self-efficacy

"It's all about setting expectations about how the adolescent is supposed to use the cell phone," the researcher said in an interview. "If those guidelines are given as instructions and not an order, and the child understands them, the parent-child relationship will be strengthened."

BY BRUCE K. DIXON

Chicago Bureau