Journal of Family Psychology2001, Vol. 15, No. I, 69-81

Copyright 2001 by the American Psychological Association, Inc0893-32O0/01/$5.0O DOI: 10.1037//0893-3200.15.1.69

Parent-Child Attachment and Monitoringin Middle Childhood

Kathryn A. KernsKent State University

Jeffery E. AspelmeierRadford University

Amy L. Gentzler and Chandra M. GrabillKent State University

Research on parent-child attachment and parental child rearing practices has beenpursued independently. The purpose of the present study was to test whether asecure attachment relationship is related to parental monitoring and child efforts tocontribute to the monitoring process. This question was examined in a cross-sectional study of third- and sixth-grade children and their parents. Attachment-based measures were used to tap child and parent perceptions of attachment.Monitoring (i.e., parents' awareness of children's whereabouts and activities) wasassessed through phone interviews with children and parents. Child contributions tomonitoring were assessed with parent and child questionnaires. A more secureattachment was related to closer monitoring and greater cooperation by the child inmonitoring situations, especially at sixth grade. The findings illustrate the impor-tance of embedding attachment within a larger child rearing context.

The family serves as a major context of so-cialization for children. One type of influencewithin this context is the quality of parent-childrelationships, which has been linked to chil-dren's social and emotional development. Forexample, the development of secure attach-ments to mothers or fathers is related to chil-dren's self-esteem, cooperation with peers, andself-control (Belsky & Cassidy, 1994; Contreras& Kerns, 2000). Parents can also influence theirchildren by engaging in specific goal-orientedparenting practices. For example, children who

Kathryn A. Kerns, Amy L. Gentzler, and ChandraM. Grabill, Department of Psychology, Kent StateUniversity; Jeffery E. Aspelmeier, Department ofPsychology, Radford University.

This research was supported by National Instituteof Child Health and Human Development Grant32377. We thank Patricia Tomich and JohnathanForbey for their assistance with data collection andour participating families for their patience and com-mitment to our extensive research protocol.

Correspondence concerning this article should beaddressed to Kathryn A. Kems, Department of Psy-chology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242.Electronic mail may be sent to kkerns@kent.edu.

are more closely monitored by parents are lesslikely to be involved in delinquent activities(Patterson & Bank, 1989). The literatures onparent-child attachment quality and specificparenting practices have not, for the most part,been integrated. Given that any child is exposedto both, it is important to understand how thetwo are linked. The goal of the present studywas to examine how attachment interfaces withchild rearing practices, specifically monitoring,in the middle childhood years.

Children first form attachments to their pri-mary caregivers in infancy (Bowlby, 1982), butcontinue to need attachment figures acrosschildhood and adolescence (Bowlby, 1989). Inmiddle childhood, children cite parents as theprimary providers of social support (Furman &Buhrmester, 1992; Levitt, Guacci-Franco, &Levitt, 1993; Reid, Landesman, Treder, & Jac-card, 1989). In addition, research on adolescentshas found that detachment from parents is as-sociated with negative behavioral and mental-health outcomes (Steinberg, 1990). Althoughthe frequency and intensity of attachment be-haviors declines from early to middle child-hood, attachments to parents in middle child-hood can be seen in children's secure-base or

69

70 KERNS, ASPELMEffiR, GENTZLER, AND GRABILL

safe-haven behavior and expectations for paren-tal availability (Bowlby, 1979; Bowlby, 1987,as cited in Ainsworth, 1990). The maintenanceof physical proximity becomes less important,and availability of the attachment figure be-comes the set goal of the attachment system inmiddle childhood (Bowlby, 1987, as cited inAinsworth, 1990). Availability of the attach-ment figure refers to whether the child views theattachment figure as open to communication,physically accessible, and responsive if calledon for help (Bowlby, 1987, as cited in Ains-worth, 1990).

Parents continue to play a role in support oftheir children's secure-base behavior in earlyand middle childhood. The goal of the caregiv-ing system is to protect the child, and the systemis therefore activated when an attachment figureperceives that the child is in danger or distressed(George & Solomon, 1999). Thus, the attach-ment figure needs to be aware of a child'semotional needs in addition to being accessibleand available to the child. Aside from studiesdocumenting an association between maternalresponsiveness and secure attachment (see DeWolff & van IJzendoorn, 1997), relatively littleis known about how attachment is related toparenting practices. In addition, as children getolder, they can also play a more active role bytaking on greater responsibility for secure-basemaintenance. By the later preschool years, chil-dren are able to enter into a goal-corrected part-nership with a parent in which the child is ableto take into consideration the parent's goalsduring social interaction (Marvin & Britner,1999). Consequently, by middle childhood par-ents and children share the responsibility forregulating contact between the attachment fig-ure and the child.

The present study examined attachment andchild rearing practices in middle childhood. Inexamining links between the two, we found thatdevelopmental considerations suggest the needto identify salient parenting issues during thisperiod. In contrast to their behavior in earlier pe-riods, during middle childhood children assumeincreasing responsibility for self-regulation (Mac-coby, 1984). At the same time, parents still needto ensure that their child is complying withfamily and societal rules. Therefore, a majorparenting issue during the middle childhoodyears is how parents and children work togetheraround issues of parental supervision and con-

trol. Monitoring, which refers to a parent'sawareness of a child's activities and where-abouts, represents one aspect of parent-childcontrol. Monitoring differs from secure-basesupport in that the function of the behavior is toensure child compliance with adult standards aswell as to promote the child's safety. Conse-quently, monitoring can occur in a broaderrange of situations (e.g., checking whether achild has completed homework). High levels ofparental monitoring may indicate that parentsare interested and involved with their children.In addition, parents who monitor their chil-dren's whereabouts and activities may be ableto prevent problem behaviors or provide assis-tance to their child when needed. Consistentwith these hypotheses is the fact that higherparental monitoring has been associated withlower levels of juvenile delinquency and anti-social behavior and better academic perfor-mance in middle childhood and adolescence,with effects sometimes stronger for boys(Crouter, MacDermid, McHale, & Perry-Jenkins, 1990; Patterson & Bank, 1989; Patter-son & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1984; Sampson &Laub, 1994; Stice & Barrera Jr., 1995; Vuch-inich, Bank, & Patterson, 1992; Weintraub &Gold, 1991).

As implied in the discussion so far, monitor-ing is often treated as a characteristic of parents,but, as Crouter et al. (1990) argued, it is bestthought of as a dyadic process in that a child'sbehavior will affect a parent's ability to monitorthe child. That is, some children are easier tomonitor than others are because of their will-ingness to cooperate in the monitoring process.For example, some children may be especiallyprone to take responsibility for alerting theirparents about their activities and whereabouts.The child's contribution to the monitoring pro-cess has not, however, been studied. In thepresent study, we gathered information aboutparent's awareness of their child's activities(i.e., monitoring). We also used a new measuredesigned to capture a child's tendency to coop-erate in monitoring situations so that we couldexplicitly capture the child's contributions tothe monitoring process.

Monitoring and children's willingness to bemonitored may each be related to parent-childattachment quality. A general tendency to take achild-centered approach may both facilitate re-sponsiveness to child needs (and therefore pro-

PARENT-CHILD ATTACHMENT AND MONITORING 71

mote secure attachment) and be associated withan interest in the child that leads to closer mon-itoring. In addition, open communication be-tween parent and child is a characteristic asso-ciated with secure attachment (Oppenheim &Waters, 1995), which may in turn facilitatemonitoring. Waters, Kondo-Ikemura, Posada,and Richters (1991) proposed the more specifichypothesis that the development of a secureattachment relationship sets the stage for a su-pervisory partnership between a parent and achild in middle childhood. The notion of a su-pervisory partnership is that the child cooper-ates with parents around supervision and mon-itoring issues. Waters et al. (1991) argued thatchildren are more likely to cooperate with pa-rental requests regarding monitoring when theyhave a history of interactions with the parent inwhich the parent has operated as an accessiblesecure base and safe haven. That is, reciprocalcooperation between parent and child developsas a consequence of secure attachment.

In the one previous test of a link betweenattachment and monitoring, Sampson and Laub(1994) found that interviewer ratings of attach-ment and monitoring were correlated in a sam-ple of delinquent and nondelinquent boys. For anumber of reasons, additional research onattachment-monitoring links is needed. TheSampson and Laub article is based on secondaryanalysis of Glueck and Glueck's (1950) study ofdelinquents. The measure they labeled as at-tachment appears to tap a parental warmth/rejection dimension. It is, therefore, onlyloosely related to current conceptualizations ofthe attachment construct that focus on the parentas a secure base and safe haven. Second, theirstudy only included boys. Third, there is a needto replicate in more recent samples that were notselected for risk factors; perhaps attachmentonly facilitates monitoring in the face of adver-sity, but has no impact in lower risk samples.Fourth, assessments of parental monitoringwere limited to mothers' reports of their super-vision, and we therefore lack information onwhether attachment and monitoring are also re-lated for fathers.

Mothers and fathers participated in thepresent study because both are important attach-ment figures during the middle childhood years.There may be some differences in how mothersand fathers allocate responsibility for monitor-ing their children's activities. Studies with

younger children have found that fathers areless involved than mothers are in monitoringand supervising their children's peer contacts(Bhavnagri & Parke, 1991; Ladd & Goiter,1988). In middle childhood, mothers tend tomonitor children more closely than do fathers(Crouter et al., 1990), even in single-parenthouseholds (Maccoby, Buchanan, Mnookin, &Dornbusch, 1993). One possibility is that asso-ciations between attachment and monitoringmay be stronger for mothers, given that moni-toring is a more central role for them than it isfor fathers. Alternatively, it may be that thedegree of association between attachment andmonitoring for mothers and fathers is similar,even if on average fathers monitor less closely.Attachment theory does not make differentialpredictions for mothers and fathers concerninghow attachment would be related to monitoringand child check-ins. Including both mothers andfathers in our study allowed us to test the twoalternative hypotheses.

The present study explored links betweenparental monitoring, child contributions to mon-itoring, and attachment in a sample of boys andgirls not selected for any risk factors. Bothmothers and fathers participated in the study,when possible. We used measures of attachmentthat are more consistent with recent conceptu-alizations of the construct. In the present study,we used attachment-based assessments of theparent-child relationship in which we tappedchild and parent perceptions of the relationship.The term attachment based refers to the fact thatthe measures were designed to capture pro-cesses identified as important in attachment the-ory. Both child and parent perceptions wereassessed to capture the perspectives of bothmembers in the dyad. Children reported thedegree to which they viewed a particular attach-ment figure as accessible, open to communica-tion, and responsive to requests for help (Kerns,Klepac, & Cole, 1996). Parents reported thedegree to which they were willing to serve as anattachment figure for the target child (Kerns etal., 1996).

To measure monitoring, we used a telephoneinterview technique developed by Crouter et al.(1990). Parents and children were interviewedseparately about a child's activities and where-abouts on a particular day. The match betweenchildren's and parents' answers was used as anindex of monitoring (i.e., higher match indicates

72 KERNS, ASPELMEIER, GENTZLER, AND GRABILL

closer monitoring). In addition, to tap child con-tributions to monitoring situations, we askedparents and children to complete questionnairesreporting what children typically do in monitor-ing situations (e.g., do they volunteer informa-tion to parents when their plans for the daychange?). We gathered separate assessments ofattachment, monitoring, and child contributionsto monitoring for mother-child and father-child dyads to examine whether patterns weresimilar for both parents.

The middle-childhood years were selectedfor study given the relative lack of research onattachment and the importance of monitoringduring this period. Even within this period,there may be some changes in how attachmentand monitoring are linked. In the early years ofmiddle childhood, children may spend moretime in close proximity to parents, which wouldmake it easier for parents to stay aware of theirchildren's activities and whereabouts. At olderages, when children spend more time physicallyseparated from parents, negotiating issues re-lated to monitoring and supervision becomesmuch more salient, and the child's willingnessto communicate about his or her whereaboutsmay become more critical. Therefore, we ex-pected that associations between attachmentand monitoring might be especially strong aschildren approach adolescence because a moresecure attachment would facilitate child coop-eration in the monitoring process at this time.To test this hypothesis, we used a cross-sectional design in which we examined howattachment is related to monitoring and childcontributions to the monitoring process at twoages: when children were in third and in sixthgrade. We expected associations to be strongerfor the older children.

Method

Participants

Participants consisted of 104 families with a childin third grade (53 boys and 51 girls) and 72 familieswith a child in sixth grade (33 boys and 39 girls).Mean ages for the third and sixth graders were,respectively, 9.12 years and 12.08 years. All thirdgraders attended elementary schools. Sixth graderswere attending elementary schools (25%), middleschools serving fifth and sixth graders (35%), ormiddle schools with sixth, seventh, and eighth grad-ers (40%). Most children were White (89%), 6%were African American, 2% were Asian or Pacific

Islander, less than 1% were Hispanic, and 2% re-ported other ethnic origins. The sample reflected theracial distribution in the region from which it wasdrawn. Parents residing in the child's primary resi-dence were invited to participate in the study. Amajority of the participants (63%) reported intact-family status, 25% reported single-parent status (with23% single mother-headed and 2% single father-headed), and 12% reported stepfamily status (with11% reporting stepfathers and 1% reporting step-mothers). In some two-parents families, only themother participated.1 Self-reports of highest educa-tional level attained indicated that 3% of the mothersand fathers had less than 12 years of education, 27%of the mothers and 25% of the fathers had graduatedfrom high school, 19% of the mothers and fathers hadsome college education or an associates degree, 31%of the mothers and 27% of the fathers had more than2 years of college or a 4-year degree, and 20% of themothers and 26% of the fathers had at least somepostgraduate education. Participants were recruitedthrough letters to third- and sixth-grade families dis-tributed in classrooms in local public and privateschools.

Procedure

In the context of a larger study, parent-child pairs(mother-child, father-child) participated separatelyin 1.5-hr laboratory sessions. In two-parent families,the sessions were scheduled approximately 2 monthsapart with the order of mothers' and fathers' partic-ipation alternated across participants. Single-parentfamilies and families with only one participating par-ent took part in only one lab session. During the labvisit, parents and children first completed an interac-tion and observation session in which they completedtasks that measured child and parent problem solvingand discussion of emotional topics; the observationsession is not part of the present report. Followingthis, parents and children separately completed aseries of questionnaires, the order of which was stan-dardized across all participants. The questionnairepacket included the attachment and child check-inquestionnaires. At the end of the first lab sessionarrangements were made to begin a series of tele-phone interviews that were used to assess monitoring.

Measures

Attachment-based measures. Children's self-reports of mother—child and father-child relation-

1 In the intact families, 5 fathers completed phoneinterviews but not questionnaires and 7 fathers didnot participate at all. In the stepfamilies, 2 stepfatherscompleted phone interviews but not questionnairesand 4 stepfathers did not participate at all.

PARENT-CHILD ATTACHMENT AND MONITORING 73

ships were obtained using the Security Scale (Kernset al., 1996). This measure was designed to assesschildren's perceptions of security in parent-child re-lationships in middle childhood and early adoles-cence. Items on the Security Scale tap the following:(a) the degree to which children believe a particularattachment figure is responsive and available (e.g.,whether a child worries that a parent will not be therewhen needed), (b) the children's tendency to rely onthe attachment figure in times of stress (e.g., whetherthe child goes to parent when upset), and (c) chil-dren's reported ease and interest in communicatingwith the attachment figure (e.g., whether a child likesto tell a parent what she or he is thinking and feeling).The measure is composed of 15 items that are ratedon a 4-point scale using Harter's (1982) "Somekids... other kids..." format. Children read state-ments such as, "Some kids find it easy to trust theirmom BUT other kids are not sure if they can trusttheir mom." They were told to indicate which state-ment was more characteristic of them and then toindicate whether this statement was really true (1) forthem or sort of true (4) for them. Items on theSecurity Scale are presented in Appendix A. Eachitem is scored on a 4-point scale with higher scoresindicating a more secure attachment. Scores acrossitems were averaged so that children received a scoreon a continuous dimension of security. Reliabilityalphas for third-grade participants were .63 and .82,for mother and father, respectively, and those forsixth-grade participants were .79 and .87, for motherand father, respectively.

Other studies also provide evidence of the SecurityScale's reliability and validity. Kerns et. al. (1996)reported alphas of .84 and .88, respectively, for twostudies with 10- to 12-year-old children and reporteda 14-day interval test-retest correlation of r(30) =.75. In addition, children's reports of security wererelated to children's ratings of self-concept, peer rat-ings of liking, observer ratings of interactions withfriends, and mother reports of acceptance of the child(Kerns et al, 1996). There is also some evidence ofdiscriminant validity, in that security scores were notrelated to school grade point average or to children'sself-perceptions of athletic competence (Kerns et al.,1996). Finally, two studies have examined associa-tions between security scores and concurrently ad-ministered projective measures of attachment. Chil-dren in the third-grade sample participated in afollow-up study 2 years later (Contreras, Kerns, Wei-mer, Gentzler, & Tomich, 2000; Kerns, Tomich, As-pelmeier, & Contreras, 2000). In the follow-up study,children completed the Separation Anxiety Test(SAT; Resnick, 1993), a projective interview thattaps children's state of mind with respect to attach-ment. Security scores were related to both the ratingsand classifications from the SAT; for example, chil-dren reporting greater security to mother were lessdismissing and had more coherent discourse during

the SAT interview. In a second study (Granot &Mayseless, in press), child security scores were sig-nificantly related to secure classifications and ratingsobtained from an attachment-doll interview measure.

Parent reports of acceptance of and willingness toserve as an attachment figure for the target child wereobtained from mothers and fathers using Block's(1965) Child Rearing Practices Report (CRPR). TheCRPR is a Q-sort deck of 91 cards, each containinga sentence depicting a child rearing belief or practice.Instructions were taken from Block (1965). The par-ent's task was to read the cards carefully and thensort them into seven piles of 13 cards each from mostcharacteristic (Pile 7) to least characteristic (Pile 1)of their own child rearing practices and beliefs. Par-ents described their practices and beliefs with refer-ence to the child participating in the study. An ex-perimenter was available to assist parents who wereconfused by question content or by the sortingprocedure.

Eleven of the items from Block's CRPR werechosen by Kerns et al. (1996) as indicators of parent'sacceptance of and willingness to serve as an attach-ment figure for the child participating in the study.Sample items are "I respect my child's opinions andencourage him/her to express them" and "I feel achild should be given comfort and understandingwhen she/he is scared or upset." In the present study,one item was dropped because of a low item-totalcorrelation and possible overlap with the monitoringvariable.2 The items used in this study are presentedin Appendix B. The score for an item is the pile inwhich the item is placed. Cronbach's alphas were .74for both mothers and fathers of sixth graders and .75and .52 for mothers and fathers of third graders,respectively.

There is some reliability and validity data for thisitem cluster. Kerns et al. (1996) reported a scalealpha of .73 for mothers' reports of willingness toserve as an attachment figure. In addition, maternalreports were significantly correlated with child secu-rity scores. In another study based on the presentsample (Kerns et al., 2000), parental reports of will-ingness to serve as an attachment figure were relatedto observer ratings of responsiveness for mothers andfathers at third grade and for mothers at sixth grade.

Means, standard deviations, and sample sizes forthe attachment measures are presented in Table 1. Inaddition, we examined associations between chil-dren's reports of security and parents' reports ofwillingness to serve as an attachment figure. The twowere significantly correlated at third grade for fathers

2 The item dropped from the cluster was "I makesure I know where my child is and what s/he isdoing." We recommend excluding this item from thecluster in future studies.

74 KERNS, ASPELMEffiR, GENTZLER, AND GRABILL

Table 1Means, Standard Deviations, and Number of Participants for Attachmentand Monitoring Measures

Variable

AttachmentSecurity Scale MSecurity Scale FM serve as AFF serve as AF

MonitoringM monitoringF monitoring

Child Check insM check inF check inC-M check inC-F check in

Note. Security Scale represents child report. M = mother; F = father; AF = mother and father reports ofwillingness to serve as an attachment figure; C-M = child reports of check-ins to mother; C-F = child reportsof check-ins to father.

M

3.433.316.075.90

0.840.80

0.930.900.880.89

Third grade

SD

0.360.490.680.55

0.070.09

0.100.110.120.13

n

101789667

9966

10068

10179

M

3.293.155.925.82

0.820.77

0.900.880.850.84

Sixth gradeSD

0.420.520.680.74

0.070.10

0.160.160.140.22

n

70517144

7047

70447151

and at sixth grade for mothers and fathers, with rsbetween .25 and .40.

Parental monitoring. Monitoring, or parents'awareness of their child's activities and whereabouts,was measured with a series of telephone interviewsdeveloped by Crouter and colleagues (Crouter et al.,1990; Crouter & McHale, 1993). With two-parentfamilies, interviews were administered over a periodof 7 different evenings and consisted of three inter-views with mother and child (two on weekdays andone during the weekend), three interviews with fatherand child (two on weekdays and one during theweekend), and one final call in which mother, father,and child were interviewed separately; thus, eachparent completed four interviews. Mothers and fa-thers answered the same sets of questions. In single-parent families, the participating parent completedthe same four interviews. Each interview assessed theparent's knowledge of the child's experiences,whereabouts, playmates, and activities during thatparticular day. After ascertaining that the other inter-viewee was not around, parents and children wereseparately asked a number of questions about thechild's day that were scored for the extent to whichthe parent's report matched the child's. For example,children and parents were asked the following ques-tions: "Did you [your child] purchase or buy anythingtoday? [If yes] can you tell me what you [your child]bought?" "Did you [your child] have any specialsuccess in school today such as getting a good gradeor being rewarded for special performances? [If yes]what?" Across the four calls 26 questions were asked.Phone interviews were scheduled in advance, butdifferent questions were asked on each call so thatparents would not be able to prepare. Total monitor-

ing scores were calculated separately for mother andfather by dividing the number of correct responsesfor all interviews by the total number of questionsasked. Therefore, a score of 1.00 reflected completemonitoring and one of 0.00 reflected a complete lackof monitoring.

Child check-in measures. To tap the child's con-tribution to the monitoring process, we asked parentsand children to separately complete an author-constructed measure of how responsible the child isin check-in situations. The 12-item check-in measureasked each parent to indicate yes or no as to whethertheir child typically performs various check-in be-haviors with them on days when the child has a lot offree time (e.g., Saturdays or summer days). Similarly,children were given the same instructions except theywere told to answer the questions in reference to whatthey would do with a specific parental figure (e.g.,mother or father), and completed one questionnairefor each participating parent. Examples of check-initems include "Volunteers information about plans,""Contacts parent right away if plans change," and"Understands that plans for the day may need to benegotiated with the parent." Scale scores were calcu-lated as the proportion of yes responses (possiblerange = 0-1.0). Thus, higher scores indicated morechecking in with a parent.

Means and standard deviations for parent andchild reports of child check-in are shown in Table 1.The check-in variables, unlike all other variables,showed substantial negative skewness. Therefore, allcheck-in data were subjected to an arcsine transfor-mation prior to the main analyses.

We had conceptualized checking in as the child'scontribution to the monitoring process, and therefore

PARENT-CHILD ATTACHMENT AND MONITORING 75

we examined whether monitoring was related to childcheck-ins. Parents may be able to monitor their child,even if their child is not consistent about checking inwith them, by making extra efforts. Nevertheless, itmight be easier to monitor a child if he or sheconsistently checks in with a parent. Monitoring andreports of child check-ins were significantly corre-lated for mother-child dyads, but not for father-child dyads. More specifically, mothers' monitoringof children in third grade was related to mothers'reports of child check-ins, r(96) = .20, p < .05.Mothers' monitoring of children in sixth grade wasrelated to both mother and child reports of childcheck-ins, r(67) = .26, p < .05, and r(68) = .24, p <.05, respectively.

Results

Attachment: Associations With Monitoringand Child Check-Ins

The present study tested the hypothesis that amore secure attachment would be associatedwith more monitoring and with the child takingmore responsibility for checking in with theparent. We examined both parent and child re-ports of check-ins to examine links acrosssources. Prior to the main analyses, we exploredwhether family status was related to our mainvariables. This was done because there wereintact families, stepfamilies, and single-parentfamilies in the sample, and monitoring in par-ticular might occur more often in intact familiesin which parents may have more time availablefor this activity. Mother and father monitoringand mothers' reports of child check-ins wererelated to family status; children in intact fam-ilies were monitored more closely and reportedto check-in more than children in stepfamiliesor single-parent families. Therefore, we in-cluded family status as a covariate in all subse-quent analyses (coded as 1 = intact, 2 = step-families and single parent families).

Monitoring. Correlations between attach-ment and monitoring are shown in Table 2. Atthird grade, attachment was not related to mon-itoring. By contrast, at sixth grade, two of fourcorrelations were significant. More specifically,mothers who reported a greater willingness toserve as an attachment figure more closely mon-itored their children. In addition, sixth graderswho reported greater security to fathers weremonitored more closely by their fathers.

Child check-ins. At third grade, some sig-nificant associations between attachment and

Table 2Correlations Between Parent and ChildAttachment Measures and Parents'Monitoring, Controlling for Family Status

Relationship

Mother-child relationshipSecurity (child)Serve as AF (mother)

Father-child relationshipSecurity (child)Serve as AF (father)

Thirdgrade

r n

.03 99-.03 95

-.01 65.10 62

Sixthgrader n

.19 69

.25* 70

.37* 46

.19 43Note. AF = willingness to serve as an attachmentfigure.*p< .05.

child check-ins were found for mother-childdyads (see Table 3). Children who reportedgreater security with their mothers also reportedchecking in more with their mothers. In addi-tion, mothers who reported a greater willingnessto serve as an attachment figure also reportedthat their children checked in more with them.Thus, for mother-child dyads at third grade,effects were found within a rater. For father-child dyads, there was one marginally signifi-cant effect: Children who reported greater secu-rity with their fathers were reported by fathersto check in more.

Again, findings at sixth grade were more ro-bust. Security and willingness to serve as anattachment figure were significantly and posi-tively correlated with child check-in reportsfrom both parents and children; seven of eightcorrelations were significant and one correlationwas marginally significant. Thus, at sixth grade,effects were found both within and across rat-ers. The significant correlations ranged from .24to .59.

Age and Sex as Moderators

The overall pattern of results was stronger atsixth grade than at third grade: More significanteffects were found, and effects were larger inmagnitude, at sixth grade. To provide a strongertest of the hypothesis that age moderated thelinks between attachment and monitoring orchild check-ins, we tested whether correlationswere significantly higher at sixth grade than atthird grade. We applied Fisher's r to z transfor-mation to correlation coefficients and then cal-

76 KERNS, ASPELMEIER, GENTZLER, AND GRABILL

Table 3Correlations Between Parent and Child Attachment Measures and Children's Checking WithParent, Controlling for Family Status

Relationship

Mother-child relationshipSecurity (child)Serve as AF (mother)

Father-child relationshipSecurity (child)Serve as AF (father)

Parent

r

.05

.29**

•21t.10

Third

n

10096

6767

grade

Child

r

.25*

.16

.12- .02

n

10196

7867

Parent

r

.24*

.59***

.39*

.38*

Sixth

n

6970

4341

grade

Child

r

.44***

.24*

.26t

.42**

n

7071

5044

Note. AF = willingness to serve as an attachment figure.t p < .10 (marginally significant). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

culated z scores to determine if the correlationswere significantly different (Snodgrass, 1977).To limit the number of tests, we performedthese calculations only for those variable pairsthat were significantly correlated at sixth grade(n = 9).

Monitoring. For monitoring, there weretwo marginally significant differences in corre-lations. Mother reports of willingness to serveas an attachment figure and monitoring weremore highly correlated for the sixth graders thanfor the third graders, z = 1.81, p = .07. Childreports of security with father and father mon-itoring were correlated more highly at sixthgrade than at third grade, z = 1.90, p < .06.

Child check-ins. Two significant differ-ences in the magnitude of the correlations forsixth and third graders were found. Correlationsbetween mother reports of willingness to serveas an attachment figure and mother reports ofchild check-ins were higher for sixth gradersthan for third graders, z = 2.38, p < .05. Inaddition, correlations between father reports ofwillingness to serve as an attachment figure andchild reports of check-ins with fathers werehigher for sixth graders than for third graders,z = 2.35, p < .05.

As noted earlier, in some studies, monitoringhas been more highly related to delinquency andschool achievement for boys than for girls.However, we had no theoretical reason for ex-pecting associations between attachment andmonitoring or child check-ins to differ by gen-der. We did conduct follow-up analyses to testthis assumption. To limit the number of analy-ses, we first examined, separately by grade,whether there were variables that were signifi-

cantly correlated for one gender but not theother (i.e., 24 correlations were calculated foreach gender). For the 6 cases for which a sig-nificant correlation was found for only onegroup, we then tested whether the correlationsfor boys and girls were significantly different.There was only one significant difference be-tween correlation pairs and no marginally sig-nificant differences. Specifically, at sixth gradethe association between father reports of will-ingness to serve as an attachment figure andchild reports of check-ins was higher for boysthan for girls, z = 2.13, p < .05, respective rs =.58 and .02. We concluded that patterns of as-sociation between attachment and monitoring orchild check-ins were similar for boys and girls.

Discussion

In the present study, we found some evidencefor the hypothesis that child and parent percep-tions of a more secure attachment relationshipare related to monitoring and child check-ins inmiddle childhood. Effects were especiallystrong at preadolescence. Monitoring was re-lated to perceptions of attachment, but only atsixth grade. Children's tendencies to check-inwith parents in monitoring situations, whichrepresented the child's contribution to the mon-itoring process, were related to perceptions ofattachment at both grades. At third grade, sig-nificant effects were found only for mother-child dyads. In addition, these effects werefound only when reports of check-ins and theattachment variables were from the same source(i.e., mother or child). By contrast, at sixthgrade associations between perceptions of at-

PARENT-CHILD ATTACHMENT AND MONITORING 77

tachment and child check-ins were more robust.Effects were found for both mother-child andfather-child dyads. Not only were there a largernumber of significant effects at sixth grade, butalso the effects were found across sources (i.e.,both child and parent reports of attachment wererelated to both child and parent reports of childcheck-ins). Further, follow-up tests to explorethe age differences in correlations revealed thatseveral of the correlations were significantlystronger at sixth grade than at third grade.

In the present study, data on attachment,monitoring, and children's tendencies to checkin were gathered concurrently, and therefore donot provide a basis for inferring causal directionof influence among the constructs. Several dif-ferent models are consistent with the pattern offindings. First, the findings are consistent withthe hypothesis that a secure attachment relation-ship instills in the child a cooperative orienta-tion (Richters & Waters, 1991; Waters, Vaughn,Posada, & Kondo-Ikemura, 1995), which inturn facilitates cooperation in monitoring situa-tions. Second, our results are also consistentwith the alternative hypothesis that higher lev-els of parental monitoring may help promote ormaintain a secure attachment relationship. Forexample, higher levels of monitoring may reas-sure the child about the availability and interestof the attachment figure. A third possibility isthat the association between attachment andmonitoring is due primarily to characteristics ofthe child or parent that impact both. For exam-ple, temperament characteristics such as thechild's ability to regulate attention and emo-tions may make it easier to monitor a child andto form and maintain more secure attachmentrelationships. From the parents' side, the ten-dency to take a child-centered approach mayfoster both a secure parent-child attachmentand closer parental monitoring. Sorting outthese alternatives would require replication andextension of the present findings. A longitudinalstudy is necessary to address the question ofdirection of influence over time. In addition,future research would benefit from incorporat-ing additional child or parent variables thatmight account for the effects found here.

More generally, the findings show that as-pects of parenting other than maternal respon-siveness may co-occur with more secure attach-ment relationships. These results highlight theneed to explore further how attachment and

parenting practices are linked to one another, aswell as how they may jointly explain children'ssocial development. Each of these research ar-eas has produced a rich body of knowledgeregarding how family factors are related to chil-dren's social, emotional, and cognitive develop-ment. The present findings suggest it may befruitful to integrate these two literatures, whichwould lead to a new set of questions. The qual-ity of attachment relationships may affect howeasy or difficult it is for parents to achieve othersocialization goals such as promoting indepen-dence or empathy for others. That is, as sug-gested by Darling and Steinberg (1993), theaffective quality of the parent-child relation-ship might moderate the impact of specific par-enting practices. In addition, attachment hasbeen shown to have a diverse set of correlates,including child compliance, persistence and en-thusiasm when working on tasks, and peer com-petence (Belsky & Cassidy, 1994). It could bethat some of the correlations between attach-ment and socialization outcomes are due toother aspects of parenting correlated with at-tachment. For example, it may be that some ofthe effects of attachment are explained or me-diated (Baron & Kenny, 1986) by more specificparenting practices (Kerns, Cole, & Andrews,1998). Considering the effects of parentingpractices and attachment jointly allows for test-ing these hypotheses. Finally, it is clear thatchildren do not experience either attachmentrelationships or more specific parenting prac-tices in isolation in their daily lives, and there-fore understanding how the two operate to-gether is necessary for building developmentalmodels that can capture how family variablescombine to affect children's development.

Some caution is warranted when interpretingthe different patterns found for third and sixthgraders, given that the study was cross-sectionaland therefore data from different samples werebeing compared. Nevertheless, the findings dosuggest that attachment is more highly related tomonitoring and checking in at preadolescencethan at an earlier age. It is doubtful that allspecific parenting practices will be related toattachment, at all ages. Instead, it may be thatattachment is most related to specific parentingpractices when parents are addressing parentingissues involving transformation and challenge(e.g., negotiating independence with their childin the toddler or early-adolescent years). Thus,

78 KERNS, ASPELMEffiR, GENTZLER, AND GRABDLL

the stronger findings for sixth graders than thosefor third graders may be due to the fact thatparents and children are negotiating autonomyissues at this time. Alternatively, the weakerfindings at third grade might be related to theparents' need to monitor at the two ages. Forexample, at third grade, parents may receivemore information about child activities fromother sources (e.g., reports from teachers). Be-fore concluding that there are age differences inthe associations, the question is worth exploringfurther with particular attention to the contextsin which parental monitoring might be impor-tant prior to preadolescence. It may be that, withyounger children, attachment is related to mon-itoring only in certain situations (e.g., ongoingmonitoring when parent and child are in a mallor how parents handle monitoring when chil-dren are entering a new situation). The presentstudy could be extended by examining the mon-itoring process with preadolescents and youngerchildren in a variety of contexts and by consid-ering further how die social ecology of parent-ing might affect the need for monitoring andchild check-ins at different ages.

We were also interested in examiningwhether associations of attachment with moni-toring and child check-ins would be stronger formothers than for fathers, as might be expected ifmonitoring is primarily the mother's responsi-bility, or whether patterns would be similar formothers and fathers, as might be expected fromattachment theory. Including both mothers andfathers in the study made it possible to evaluatewhether associations varied with parent gender.Overall, there were more similarities than dif-ferences when comparing mother and fatherresults. At sixth grade, attachment was relatedto monitoring and child check-ins for bothmothers and fathers. At third grade, attachmentand monitoring were not related for mothers orfathers, although associations between attach-ment and child check-ins were found for moth-ers only. It should be noted that the findings forthird graders were generally weaker, and thedifferences in the magnitude of mother and fa-ther correlations at third grade were small. Ad-ditional research is needed before firm conclu-sions can be drawn concerning mother-fatherdifferences in associations between attachmentand indexes of the monitoring process.

Although measurement issues were not thefocus of this particular study, some issues de-

serve comment. The assessment of parent-childrelationship quality was based on attachmenttheory and was designed to capture the chil-dren's and parents' conscious representations oftheir attachment relationship. As noted earlier,there is some evidence that child reports ofsecurity are related to projective measures ofattachment (Contreras et al., 2000; Kerns et al.,2000; Granot & Mayseless, in press), as well asto children's self-concept and peer relationships(Kerns et al., 1996). Measure validation is, ofcourse, an ongoing process, and additional re-search is needed that examines how the childand parent attachment-based measures used inthis study are related to other types of attach-ment assessments. For example, child reports ofsecurity could be correlated with early child-hood measures of attachment such as the At-tachment Q-Set (Waters et al., 1995), and bothparent and child reports could be validated byexamining associations with concurrent parentmeasures, such as the Adult Attachment Inter-view (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1996), that tapa parent's state of mind regarding attachment.We would expect studies using other types ofattachment measures to replicate our findingthat attachment is related to monitoring andchild check-ins at preadolescence. Second, wecreated a new measure to tap the child's contri-bution to the monitoring process. This measurewas even more related to attachment than wasthe monitoring measure, perhaps because itmore directly taps the degree to which a child iscooperative in the monitoring process. Themeasure could be improved by obtaining moredetailed information regarding how parents andchildren negotiate in monitoring situations.

The present sample included families thatwere, in most cases, of White ethnicity and ofworking or middle class socioeconomic status.The sample reflected the ethnicity and socialclass of the area from which it was drawn.Nevertheless, it will be important to determinewhether the findings of the present study gen-eralize to more diverse populations. It is possi-ble that monitoring and child check-ins are evenmore important when families are at risk (e.g.,living in poverty or in a high-crime neighbor-hood). If so, the presence of secure attachmentrelationships may function as a protective factorin high-risk environments if it facilitates themonitoring process in these contexts.

In conclusion, our study showed that parent—

PARENT-CHILD ATTACHMENT AND MONITORING 79

child attachment is related to monitoring andchild contributions to the monitoring process.The findings were especially strong at preado-lescence, which may be a period during whichparents and children are negotiating issues ofautonomy and independence as children beginto spend more time away from parents. Moregenerally, the findings suggest the need to placeattachment in a broader child rearing context.This will allow investigators to understand howattachment and child rearing practices operatetogether to affect children's social, emotional,and cognitive competencies. The present studycould also be extended by examining furtherhow children contribute to their own socializa-tion through the impact of their characteristicson parent-child relationships and parentingpractices.

Implications for Applicationand Public Policy

The findings have implications for preventionand intervention efforts that target parent-childrelationships. Additional research is needed todisentangle the causal influences betweenparent-child relationship quality and specificparenting practices. Nevertheless, a general im-plication of the findings is that problems inparenting may co-occur, which has implicationsfor both the assessment and treatment of parent-child relationship difficulties. For example, def-icits in parental monitoring may signal to pro-fessionals that problems are likely in other areasof the parent-child relationship. In these cases,professionals should conduct a complete assess-ment of family relationships prior to developingan intervention. There may also be some posi-tive "spillover" effects, such that treating oneaspect of parent-child relationships producespositive changes in other areas.

More specifically, the findings have implica-tions for parenting programs that target parent-child attachment and the monitoring process.The results for sixth graders were similar formother-child and father-child dyads. Thesefindings serve as a reminder that interventionefforts need to target both mothers and fathers.In addition, the stronger effects at preadoles-cence suggest this may be an especially impor-tant period to target when implementing pre-vention or intervention programs aimed atimproving parent-child relationship quality andcommunication.

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PARENT-CHILD ATTACHMENT AND MONITORING

Appendix A: Items on the Security Scale

81

1. Some kids find it easy to trust their [mom/dad]BUT Other kids are not sure if they can trust theirmom (dad).

2. Some kids feel like their [mom/dad] butts in a lotwhen they are trying to do things BUT Other kids feellike their [mom/dad] lets them do things on their own.

3. Some kids find it easy to count on their [mom/dad] for help BUT Other kids think it's hard to counton their [mom/dad].

4. Some kids think their [mom/dad] spends enoughtime with them BUT Other kids think their [mom/dad] does not spend enough time with them.

5. Some kids do not really like telling their [mom/dad] what they are thinking or feeling BUT Otherkids do like telling their [mom/dad] what they arethinking or feeling.

6. Some kids do not really need their [mom/dad]for much BUT Other kids need their [mom/dad] for alot of things.

7. Some kids wish they were closer to their [mom/dad] BUT Other kids are happy with how close theyare to their [mom/dad].

8. Some kids worry that their [mom/dad] does notreally love them BUT Other kids are really sure thattheir [mom/dad] loves them.

9. Some kids feel like their [mom/dad] really un-

derstands them BUT Other kids feel like their [mom/dad] does not really understand them.

10. Some kids are really sure their [mom/dad]would not leave them BUT Other kids sometimeswonder if their [mom/dad] might leave them.

11. Some kids worry that their [mom/dad] mightnot be there when they need [her/him] BUT Otherkids are sure their [mom/dad] will be there when theyneed [her/him].

12. Some kids think their [mom/dad] does notlisten to them BUT Other kids do think their [mom/dad] listens to them.

13. Some kids go to their [mom/dad] when they areupset But Other kids do not go to their [mom/dad]when they are upset.

14. Some kids wish their [mom/dad] would helpthem more with their problems BUT Other kids thinktheir [mom/dad] helps them enough.

15. Some kids feel better when their [mom/dad] isaround BUT Other kids do not feel better when their[mom/dad] is around.

Children are given instructions on item format andcomplete one sample item prior to filling out the Secu-rity Scale. Children are told to first pick which childrenare most like them, and then to indicate whether theitem is sort of true or really true for them.

Appendix B: Item Cluster for Parental Acceptance of and Willingness to Serveas an Attachment Figure for the Child (Scored from Block, 1965,

Child-Rearing Practices Q-Sort)

1. I respect my child's opinions and encouragehim/her to express them.

5. I often feel angry with my child, (reverse scored)11. I feel a child should be given comfort and

understanding when s/he is scared or upset.32. I feel my child is a bit of a disappointment to

me. (reverse scored)34. I am easygoing and relaxed with my child.39. I trust my child to behave as she/he should,

even when I am not with him/her.

52. I make sure my child knows that I appreciatewhat she/he tries to accomplish.

53. I encourage my child to talk about his/her troubles.66. I sometimes tease and make fun of my child.

(reverse scored)69. There is a good deal of conflict between my

child and me. (reverse scored)Item cluster assesses degree to which parent com-

municates acceptance, appreciation, and willingnessto serve as a safe haven and secure base.

Note. From The Child-Rearing Practices Report (CRPR): A Set ofQ-Sort Items for the Description of ParentalSocialization Attitudes and Values, by J. H. Block, 1965. Copyright 1965 by J. H. Block. Printed with permission.

Received July 7, 1999Revision received June 15, 2000

Accepted June 28, 2000 •