Parents' Perceptions of their Adolescent Children, Parental Resources, and Satisfaction in the Parent Role.

Parental satisfaction has important implications for parents' psychological and physical wellbeing and for their treatment of their children. However, scant research has been devoted to understanding the factors that predict satisfaction in the parent role, particularly among parents with adolescent children. Drawing on identity theory, and using a nationally representative dataset of U.S. adolescents, this paper addresses this gap in the literature by exploring the relationship between parental satisfaction and parents' perceptions of their adolescents' behavioral and value-laden characteristics, taking into account parental resources. The results suggest that parents' perceptions of their adolescents' more global characteristics--including trustworthiness, understandability, temper, and quality of life-mediates the relationship between parental satisfaction and parents' perceptions of their adolescents' (problem) behaviors, including their use of illicit substances, getting expelled from school, and engaging in delinquency. For the most part, parental resources do not moderate the relationship between parents' perceptions of their children's problem-behaviors and parental satisfaction. The implications of these findings for an identity theory perspective on role-based satisfaction are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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