Global Journal of Medical Research, K: Interdisciplinary, Volume 22 Issue 3

know all his friends.” Most fathers have given the responsibility to mothers saying that mother has to monitor their children. Even most of the mothers accepted that they are closer to their kids than their fathers due to many reasons and they are more capable of doing monitoring effectively. One mother mentioned, "I stay at home, I'm not working. So, kids are with me all the time and I always keep in touch with them. I ask and talk about their activities done outside the home than my husband.”It was also revealed that parents have the perception of monitoring both their girls and boys in different ways. They came out with many different reasons such as cultural differences in how they accept girls and boys and different types and levels of risk exposures affecting both male and female kids. A mother stated: “I have a daughter; it is very easy to monitor them. She is so close to me and we are very comfortable talking about things any time.” And a father stated, "I think boys of this age group are more inquisitive, they try to experience new things more than girls. So… we should monitor boys more”. One parent came out with a phrase confirming this theme, “Our girls are more scared than boys. They expect our guidance more than our sons and they are reluctant to do bad things. So, we should do more monitoring on our sons.” iv. Perceived Factors Affecting the Amount and the Quality of Parental Monitoring done by Parents Factors facilitating the monitoring of school- going adolescents appeared to dominate the discussion in most focus groups. Monitoring was perceived to be a constant challenge by parents, characterized by the need of balancing some often-discussed factors such as: maintaining an open relationship and good communication with their adolescent children and to make adolescents' trust over parents. Many parents perceived the good communication and relationship between them, and the adolescent child may improve as they ask and show concern about the adolescent’s whereabouts, activities and companions. A mother stated "When asking things about their activities and friends, I 'm sure that they will feel that we care for them and we have concerns about them" and a father stated, “If we have a good relationship, like… if we can share things like friends, we can get information related to their activities and friends and we can more easily guide them. For that…I share my day-to-day work experiences with him. So that it develops a good relationship between us when we spend some time together, I have experienced that when I am doing so, he is also sharing his things with me.”Many parents were worried about the trust that they accept from their adolescent children. This was shown from statements made by a few parents, such as , "We should ask things in a way that they feel we are friends, and not harming the trust that they have in us” and “As we have a good bond, I don’t have to monitor him doing special things. I trust him and love him. Normally, as we share things in our lives, I feel that he trusts me so much as well.”Throughout the discussion, parent-adolescent communication was identified and highlighted as it is coinciding with parental monitoring. A mother mentioned, "We both communicate frequently, we have time to spend with my child, so, it made it easy for us to share information… that I don't have to take special effort on monitoring." b) Themes Emerged Regarding Experiences in Parental Monitoring among Parents During analysis, statements were identified, compared and intergraded to generate a few main themes namely, strategies of parental monitoring, childhood experiences of parental monitoring and barriers experienced in monitoring their adolescents representing how parents experienced doing monitoring within the context of their life situations. i. Strategies of Parental Monitoring There are different methods mainly identified during analysis in which parents were practicing monitoring their adolescent children. Majority of parents have done monitoring by directly asking things from their adolescent children about their activity plans and things about their friends. Some of them reported the need to have direct interactions with their children’s friends to monitor their adolescents. Many parents came to the consensus that their adolescents are under their control assuming that it helps to find out and to have an idea of things their adolescents was doing and where they are exactly when they are away from home. ii. Childhood Experiences of Parental Monitoring Parents came up with their childhood experiences while exchanging parental monitoring views. A mother stated, “I was so happy to be monitored by my parents… that I felt they have a concern for me. So, I think my daughter is thinking in the same manner… as she responds well when I ask things from her... I don’t feel she is getting upset when I am questioning her about the places where she was or things about her friends.”A different experience came from another mother mentioning, "I think they may not like it if we ask everything… I can remember that I was not that happy to tell all…even though I didn't tell much to my parents I didn't do bad things… so I think we don't have to ask all about them, any way we need to trust our kids."Quality and quantity of monitoring practice depend on parents’ own childhood experiences of how they were monitored by their parents. iii. Barriers Experienced in Monitoring their Adolescents Almost all parents addressed barriers that they have experienced while monitoring their adolescents. They highlighted that they are not doing the monitoring of their adolescents properly as they have experienced those barriers while in the process. Having a busy life schedule among parents was discussed as a barrier to 4 Year 2022 Global Journal of Medical Research Volume XXII Issue III Version I ( D ) K © 2022 Global Journals Perception and Experience of Parents on Monitoring their School Going Adolescents– A Qualitative Study Conducted in Kandy District, Sri Lanka