The Impact of After-School Peer Contact on Early Adolescent Externalizing Problems Is Moderated by Parental Monitoring, Perceived Neighborhood Safety, and Prior Adjustment

• Published in: Child development Vol. 70; no. 3; pp. 768 - 778
• Main Authors: Pettit, Gregory S., Bates, John E., Dodge, Kenneth A., Meece, Darrell W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, USA and Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishers Inc 01.05.1999; Blackwell Publishers; Blackwell; University of Chicago Press for the Society for Research in Child Development, etc; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Adjustment (to Environment); Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior; Adolescents; Adult; At Risk Persons; Behavior Problems; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child Behavior Disorders - epidemiology; Child clinical studies; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Children; Disease Progression; Early Adolescents; Externalizing problems; Family Characteristics; Family, School, and Community; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Friendship; Grade 6; Grade 7; Humans; Indiana - epidemiology; Intermediate Grades; Internality Externality; Junior High Schools; Juvenile delinquency; Leisure Activities - psychology; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Medical sciences; Miscellaneous; Moderator Variables; Moderators; Mothers; Multivariate Analysis; Neighborhoods; Parental Supervision; Parenting; Parenting Skills; Peer Group; Peer relations; Peer Relationship; Peers; Predictor Variables; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Regression Analysis; Residence Characteristics - statistics & numerical data; Safety - statistics & numerical data; Social Adjustment; Social Environment; Social interaction; Socialization; Tennessee - epidemiology; Indiana; Tennessee; Human; Social environment; Parental behavior; Peer relation; Follow up study; Social interaction; Risk factor; Neighbourhood; Preadolescent; Parent child relation; Behavioral disorder
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00055

Unsupervised peer contact in the after-school hours was examined as a risk factor in the development of externalizing problems in a longitudinal sample of early adolescents. Parental monitoring, neighborhood safety, and adolescents' preexisting behavioral problems were considered as possible moderators of the risk relation. Interviews with mothers provided information on monitoring, neighborhood safety, and demographics. Early adolescent (ages 12-13 years) after-school time use was assessed via a telephone interview in grade 6 (N = 438); amount of time spent with peers when no adult was present was tabulated. Teacher ratings of externalizing behavior problems were collected in grades 6 and 7. Unsupervised peer contact, lack of neighborhood safety, and low monitoring incrementally predicted grade 7 externalizing problems, after controlling for family background factors and grade 6 problems. The greatest risk was for those unsupervised adolescents living in low-monitoring homes and comparatively unsafe neighborhoods. The significant relation between unsupervised peer contact and problem behavior in grade 7 held only for those adolescents who already were high in problem behavior in grade 6. These findings point to the need to consider individual, family, and neighborhood factors in evaluating risks associated with young adolescents' after-school care experiences.