PARENTS' PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ADOLESCENT CHILDREN,PARENTAL RESOURCES,AND PARENTS' SATISFACTION WITH THE PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP

Building on Belsky's process model of the determinants of parenting and using a nationally representative dataset of U.S. adolescents, this article examines the relationship between parental satisfaction and parents' perceptions of their adolescents and their own personal and social resources. As such, it provides a coherent framework for understanding parental well-being during a critical stage of the family life course. The results suggest that parental satisfaction is negatively related to parents' perceptions that their adolescents are involved in problem behaviors or experiencing challenges in other domains of their lives; however, the relationship between parental satisfaction and adolescents' problem behaviors is mediated by parents' perceptions of their adolescents' characters, including whether or not they have a bad temper and their levels of trustworthiness. With respect to personal and social resources, parents' educational achievement and marital status are positively related to parental satisfaction, and the level of conflict in the spousal relationship is negatively related to parental satisfaction.