The close supervision of adolescents dramatically reduces the incidence of risky sexual behavior, drug and alcohol use, and other activities that could negatively affect one's health and well-being. Because of the strong correlation between parental monitoring and a child's welfare, social workers, psychologists, child development specialists, and other professionals who work with children now incorporate monitoring into their programs and practice.

A definitive resource providing the best research and techniques for productive supervision within the home, this volume defines and develops the conceptual, methodological, and practical areas of parental monitoring and monitoring research, locating the right balance of closeness and supervision while also remaining sensitive to ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Assembled by leading experts on childrearing and healthy parent-child communication, Parental Monitoring of Adolescents identifies the conditions that best facilitate parental knowledge, ideal interventions for high-risk youth, and the factors that either help or hinder the monitoring of an adolescent's world. The volume also sets a course for future research, establishing a new framework that evaluates the nature and approach of monitoring within the parent-adolescent relationship and the particular social realities of everyday life.

Vincent Guilamo-Ramos is professor of social work at New York University and the principal investigator of numerous NIH and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded research studies focused on urban minority youth and the prevention of adolescent problem behavior.

James Jaccard is professor of psychology at Florida International University and a widely published expert on parent-adolescent communication.

Patricia Dittus is a health scientist in the Division of Adolescent and School Health at the CDC. Her research focuses on effective parenting interventions aimed at reducing adolescent risk behaviors.