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

parents of adolescents aged 7-12 years through interviews with parents. This study revealed that mothers often function as monitors, keeping track of changing schedules (Deborah & Brenda, 2010) . Parent's gender role differences were also estimated quantitatively, presenting that mothers are generally more engaged in their adolescents' lives to have a closer relationship than fathers (Finkenauer et al., 2002). The present study further suggests that there may be differences in parental monitoring according to the child's sex. Parents perceived that they are monitoring their sons more than their daughters with the reasoning that boys are more involved in risk behaviors than girls. In contrast to this finding, Deborah & Brenda (2010) found out, that parents perceived that they monitor their girls more than boys in their study. This gender role difference in parents’ perception of parental monitoring has been estimated by many other quantitative studies as well. Even in their assessments of parental perception, they have shown that parents perceived high level of parental monitoring about their girls than their boys (Chilcoat et al., 1996; Crouter et al., 1999; Richards et al., 2004) in contrast to the present study finding. While exploring parental perception of monitoring, parents came out with many facts covering the theme of factors related to the quality of parental monitoring practice of parents. Of them, parent- adolescent relationships, parent-adolescent communication and trust were identified as factors that improve parental monitoring quality. Parents who participated had the perception that as they have high levels of the above qualities, they can practice a high level of parental monitoring. Deborah & Brenda (2010) also revealed that adolescent disclosure affects parental perception of monitoring which can be considered in line with parent-adolescent relationship factors revealed in the present study. Furthermore, they came with some other different factors, such as; parents' strategies for coping with adolescents, parental anxiety and parental morals as factors that change parents monitoring practice, which was not revealed in the present study. Parents often described their experiences of an event or events and authors were able to combine those facts and emotions into a larger concept during analysis. Parents came along with different methods that they were using to know their adolescent child's whereabouts, activities and companions in different frequencies. The most commonly reported strategy was having good communication with the child. This came as events that parents experienced with adolescent self- disclosure by adolescents freely telling things about them as well as solicitation by directly asking questions about activities. Parents of the present study experienced both concepts together as a common strategy in parental monitoring. Furthermore, parents have experienced that only if they solicit information from adolescents, they may experience adolescent disclosure. So, parents highlighted two-way communication as an important strategy. Adolescent disclosure and parental solicitation have been frequently documented in the existing literature as two separate strategies. Disclosure has been connected with parental monitoring and subsequent incidences of risk behaviors (Margret et al., 2010). Crouter et al, revealed that mothers and fathers can sometimes rely on different sources for monitoring, such as disclosure and solicitation (Crouter et al., 2016). Even though good communication between parents and adolescents has been proven to function as a factor to obtain a high level of parental monitoring, the present study explored it as a parental monitoring strategy that parents experienced. The method of monitoring through obtaining information from the kid’s friends and their parents was similarly explored in a qualitative study done through FGDs conducted with Sri Lankan adolescents while studying parental engagement in adolescents' alcohol use, revealing that some parents agreed that they ask their adolescent's friends about things related to their child (Thanuja D.K., 2017). Further, this was comparatively similar to finding in (Bourdeau et al., 2011), in which they described similar strategies used to increase knowledge about their adolescent’s friends. They obtained information from adolescents (direct interactions) as well as directly obtaining information from friends of adolescents who have been revealed in that qualitative study done among 173 parents of adolescents aiming to explore parental strategies for knowledge of adolescents’ friends. Occasionally parents of that study have revealed obtaining information from parents of adolescent’s friends as another strategy. Contacting parents of friends has been described there as a second-hand source of parental monitoring (Bourdeau et al., 2011). In contrast to these findings, in some studies parents were revealed to have obtained information on their adolescent's teachers as well as which was not a strategy that came from the parents of the present study (Crouter & Bumpus, 2001).Another strategy of monitoring practice identified in the intended study is by controlling their adolescent’s activities and adding rules and regulations to their relationship with friends and whereabouts. Similarly, this has been explored as an important parental monitoring strategy while describing parental engagement in alcohol use among adolescents in Sri Lanka even though the study assessed the perception of adolescents (Rendle, et al 2019). Also, parental control has been identified to obtain information to prevent risk behaviors of adolescents, according to the qualitative analysis done among parents of adolescents in a rural area of the UK (Jigsaw, 2012). Parents described their monitoring methods as reflecting on their past experiences and recalling their 6 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 childhood experiences of being monitored by their parents. Many of the parents recalled their childhood