Revisiting the Sources of Parental Knowledge and Tracking Their Between- and Within-Person Dynamics

In their seminal work, Stattin and Kerr (2000) identified three sources of parental knowledge: child disclosure, parental solicitation, and parental control. While this conceptualization has led to significant theoretical and practical contributions, the boundaries among the three sources are not always clear. In the current study, we examined a revised model of sources of parental knowledge, in which parents obtain knowledge either through covert monitoring strategies (e.g., checking the children's cell phones) or through the child's sharing. The child's sharing is further divided into two categories based on the child's motivation to share: a genuine desire to share or an attempt to avoid conflict. Our study investigated the longitudinal relations between parental knowledge and the three revised sources of information-gathering (voluntary sharing, involuntary sharing, and covert monitoring).

Two hundred twenty-one Israeli parent-adolescent dyads (59.3% girls, aged 13-18) participated in the study. Adolescents and parents completed online surveys annually over 3 years (2021-2023), focusing on parental knowledge and its sources. A Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model (RI-CLPM) was used to analyze the relations between parental knowledge and its sources, both between and within families.

Across reporters, at the between-person level, parental knowledge was positively associated with children's voluntary sharing. At the within-person level, temporary increases in voluntary sharing predicted subsequent increases in parental knowledge.

The findings emphasize the importance of the child's willful sharing of information with their parents in enhancing parental knowledge. Our study extends Stattin and Kerr's (2000) work by refining the theoretical and operational definitions of the sources of parental knowledge and clarifying the longitudinal associations underlying its development.