Active tracking measures: Providing targets for youth alcohol use and health behavior interventions

This study seeks to use examine the utility of recently published, developmentally informed measures of parental active tracking for work on youth health behaviors. Information on parental active tracking and health behaviors were collected in six independent survey studies (n's = 157-408). A series of empirical questions regarding parental active tracking were examined. The recently published measures of parental active tracking in high school and college were shown to have sufficient internal consistency, to be well described by single latent factors, to be empirically distinct from helicopter parenting, to be inconsistently linked with youth risk behaviors, and to demonstrate closer linkages with youth substance use when accounting for parental motivations for tracking. The measures of parental active tracking employed provide face valid, psychometrically sound, and empirically supported indices for use examining parental influences during adolescence and young adulthood.