Relations among single mothers' awareness of their adolescents' stressors,maternal monitoring, mother-adolescent communication, and adolescent adjustment

The goal of this study tons to examine the, relations among mothers' awaren ess of their adolescents' stressors, mother-adolescent communication, mater nal monitoring, and adolescent adjustment in single-parent families. Measur es of adolescent stress, communication, monitoring, and adolescents' anxiou s/depressed and aggressive behaviors were completed by 82 adolescents and t heir single mothers. The findings indicated that single mothers were aware of about half of their adolescents' stressors and nor as aware of the impor tance to their adolescents Adolescents in the group, characterized by high stress/flow agreement reported more problem behaviors. Moreover, monitoring mediated the relationship between awareness group membership and adolescen t adjustment as high agreement groups reported more monitoring and fewer pr oblem behaviors than did low agreement groups. Thus, during early adolescen ce when adolescent stress increases and family communication and monitoring change, monitoring by single mothers may increase awareness of adolescent stress, which in turn may buffer the negative effects of stress on adolesce nt adjustment.