Impact of time spent in parents-children communication on children misconduct

Abstract

Communication is a must and family communication enhances family ties. This study is design to discover whether quantity of time spent between parents and children have a direct impact on children misconduct activities. This is a quantitative study using a survey questionnaire. Data were gathered from 1163 respondents which comprised of 641 secondary school children and 522 parents and were analyzed using SPSS software. The data collection process took three months to be completed. The outcome showed that the children perceive the amount of time spent with their parents does have an impact towards their misconduct activities. However, it was not the same for the parents. It seems that parents did not perceive that the amount spent for communicating with their children will affect their children's misconduct activities. Parents should pay more attention to the time that they spent with their children as their children value the time that they spent with their parents'. It is crucial for parents to allocate some time in their hectic schedule to communicate with the children so that the children would not feel neglected and left out by their own parents thus making them prone to unhealthy activities.

Full text

American Journal of Applied Sciences, 2012, 9 (11), 1818-1823
ISSN 1546-9239
©2012 Science Publication
doi:10.3844/ajassp.2012.1818.1823 Published Online 9 (11) 2012 (http://www.thescipub.com/ajas.toc)
Coressponding Author: Nurani Kamaruddin, Institute for Social Science Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, UPM, Malaysia
1818
Science Publications
AJAS
Science Publications
AJAS
IMPACT OF TIME SPENT IN PARENTS-CHILDREN
COMMUNICATION ON CHILDREN MISCONDUCT
1
Nurani Kamaruddin,
1
Siti Zobidah Omar,
2
Salleh Hassan,
3
Musa Abu Hassan,
2
Arnida Ayu Che Mee and
1
Jeffrey Lawrence D’Silva
1
Institute for Social Science Studies,
2
Faculty of Modern Language and Communication,
University Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, UPM, Malaysia
3
University Sains Islam Malaysia, Bandar Baru Nilai, 71800, Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
Received 2012-02-22, Revised 2012-08-19; Accepted 2012-09-01
ABSTRACT
Communication is a must and family communication enhances family ties. This study is design to discover
whether quantity of time spent between parents and children have a direct impact on children misconduct
activities. This is a quantitative study using a survey questionnaire. Data were gathered from 1163 respondents
which comprised of 641 secondary school children and 522 parents and were analyzed using SPSS software. The
data collection process took three months to be completed. The outcome showed that the children perceive the
amount of time spent with their parents does have an impact towards their misconduct activities. However, it was
not the same for the parents. It seems that parents did not perceive that the amount spent for communicating with
their children will affect their children’s misconduct activities. Parents should pay more attention to the time that
they spent with their children as their children value the time that they spent with their parents’. It is crucial for
parents to allocate some time in their hectic schedule to communicate with the children so that the children would
not feel neglected and left out by their own parents thus making them prone to unhealthy activities.
Keywords: Family Communication, Children Misconduct
1. INTRODUCTION
Communication activities occupy most of our daily
agenda. People communicate for various reasons such as
to get new acquaintances, to get explanation, to give
directions, to seek advice, to share their thoughts and so
on. However, the main reason for communication is to
get or to share information. According to Elias and
Noordin (2011) good communication is pertinent as it
will lead towards gaining more information among
people. O’Hair (1998) stated that the essence of
communication in all contexts is that people exchange
messages to accomplish goals and objectives.
Communication process is achievable when both party
mutually understand the message conveyed as stated by
Segrin and Flora (2005), communication relies on inter-
subjectivity whereby it refers to shared meaning created,
or a state where a person understands the other and is
understood by the other. However, according to Poole et
al. (2000) communication is not a neutral act of moving
content from one person to another, but rather a complex
transaction influenced by numerous factors. As a
process, communication is an ongoing, complex and
changing activities (Segrin and Flora, 2005).
Communication is not just limited to verbal action
but it also encompasses of the non-verbal actions. Even
when verbal communication is missing, unintentional
messages still constitute communication. Most of the
time, it’s the non-verbal communication that speaks
louder than the spoken words. Non-verbal
communication is the way our body behaves to
complement our verbal communication and sometimes
our body language might betray our verbal
communication message (Knapp and Hall, 2009). Thus,
it is important for us to use the right body gestures to
enhance our verbal message in order to get our meanings
successfully understood by the receiver.
On the other hand, family communication is defined
as the act of making information, ideas, thoughts and
feelings known among members of a family unit

Nurani Kamaruddin et al. / American Journal of Applied Sciences 9 (11) (2012) 1818-1823
1819
Science Publications
AJAS
(Smith et al., 2009). The process of family growth has a
lot to do with the ability of all the family members to
communicate with one another. Clark and Shields (1997)
stated that communication is fundamental in
interpersonal relationships between family members and
it serves as the main key to understand the relation that
developed within family. Many studies have shown that
communication is a facilitator of family functioning
(Smith et al., 2009). According to Mastura and Hamzah
(2007), communication in family is a two way
communication (giving and taking) verbally or non-
verbal where a functional family will accept and try to
comprehend the message delivered whether vague or
clear between others, while a dysfunctional family
rarely accept the message properly, in fact it is being
ignored. Smith et al. (2009) stated that, a family that has
positive family communication will be better able to alter
their cohesion and flexibility to meet developmental and
situational demands that arise, whereas family system with
poor communication tends to have lower functioning in
regards to cohesion and flexibility.
There is no unitary formula for good communication
and there is no one right way to communicate for family
life to function well. However, according to Bernard and
Fenton (2007), the best way to communicate in family is
to arouse the feeling of sharing and listening. Message
delivered must be clear and appropriate. Good family
communication involves being both an active listener
and a thoughtful speaker. Findings by Salleh et al.
(2009) have laid seven criteria to develop quality
communication, which are: openness, transparency,
honesty, clear (clarity), communicate as friend, doing
activities and spending time together. Several past
research also have come up with communicative
relational standards that include showing affection
(Baucom et al., 1996; Fletcher et al., 1999; Vangelisti
and Daly, 1997; Caughlin, 2003); providing emotional
support (Fletcher et al., 1999; Vangelisti et al., 1999;
Caughlin, 2003) and having sense of humor (Fletcher et al.,
1999; Vangelisti et al., 1999; Caughlin, 2003).
Basically, family communication operates within two
types of family communication climate which are
conformity orientation and conversation orientation
(McLeod and Chaffee, 2007). Conformity orientation
refers to the degree to which families create a climate
that stress homogeneity of attitude, values and beliefs
(high conformity) versus heterogeneous attitudes and
beliefs, greater individuality and uniqueness and
independence of family members (low conformity;
Koerner and Fitzpatrick, 1997). Meanwhile conversation
orientation refers to the degree to which family members
create a climate where all are encourage to participate
freely and frequently in interaction without limitation
regarding time spent and topic discussed (high
conversation) versus less frequent interaction with only a
few topics that are freely discussed (low conversation;
Koerner and Fitzpatrick, 1997). High conversation
families share a lot of activities, thoughts and feelings
(Koerner and Fitzpatrick, 2004).
Parents who create communication gaps between the
children will make their children feel at a loss, a situation
whereby the children will finally self-destruct. Past research
showed that communication problem between parents and
children is one of the factors that make children feel lonely
and depressed (Hartos and Power, 2000). These feelings of
loneliness and depressed will eventually result in those
children being involved with social illness such as drug
abuse, theft, fights and so forth as a way to express their
feelings. Psychologists agreed adolescent years that must be
endured by the youth is certainly a time of storm and stress
because they were going through physical and emotional
changes due to biological changes which is of natural
process that happens to all individual that have gone
through the change phases from childhood years to the
adulthood (Rathus, 2010). However, communication
process that allows an open and honest practice is a perfect
medium for the children to share their problems or to voice
out their ideas without them being scared. This eventually
will develop positive values in the children thus making
them a difficult target for those with bad intention as stated
by Barberet and Fisher (2009) who identify that close
relationship between parent and children could hinder
teenagers’ misconduct.
Time for family communication is the most common
problem faced by family today. Almost every parent is a
working parent, who spends long working hours at the
workplace for the sake of providing for the family.
Meanwhile, the children routine life is lined up with
strenuous academic activities, thus making it harder for
parents and children to catch up with each other. Back in the
1970’s, the term quality time emerged when many mothers
started going to study (Emmers-Sommer, 2004). They were
told that quality time with their children is what matters
more instead of the quantity of time (Lingren, 1998;
Emmers-Sommer, 2004). Quality time refers to focused,
uninterrupted time with partners, friends, or children where
it should provide opportunity for meaningful conversation
and the chance to do worth-while activities together
(Lingren, 1998). According to Segrin and Flora (2005), the
quality of time family members spend together says far
more about their relationships than does the quantity of time
spent together.
A study by Sandberg and Hofferth (2001) regarding
how much time family members spend together found
that American children spent more time with their
mother and no less time with their father. According to
Alwin (1996), probably the strongest explanation for

Nurani Kamaruddin et al. / American Journal of Applied Sciences 9 (11) (2012) 1818-1823
1820
Science Publications
AJAS
why parents and especially mothers are spending more
time with their children is pertaining to child rearing
trends. It has been established that the frequency of
interacting with children will enhance the parent-children
relationship. Time spent in family activities is assumed
to promote positive relationship and individual
development. Sandberg and Hofferth (2001) found that
children who spent more hours eating meals with their
family had lower level of behavior problems than did
those who spent fewer hours eating together. According
to Jolly (2007), the intimate relationships that develop
between parents and children will give them comfort for
sharing problems, feelings, hopes and also ideas.
Previous studies showed that family communication and
children misconduct does relate with each other. Many past
researches have found that communication between parents
and children is one of the important factors that could
prevent children from being involved in social problems, an
increment in communication intimacy between parent and
children can help reduce misconduct among the children
(Clark and Shields, 1997). Klein et al. (1997) also showed
that communication between parent and children is one of
the variables that have connection with the increase or
decrease in teenagers’ misconduct. According to Hartos and
Power (2000), communication between parent and children
have connection with children’s positive behaviours such as
academic excellence and also children’s’ negative
behaviours such as drug abuse, alcoholism and other
misconducts. While Barberet and Fisher (2009) finds that
close relationship between parent and children could
hindered teenagers misconduct. Hence, the objective of this
study is to determine whether quantity of time spent
between parents and children have a direct impact on their
misconduct activities.
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
This research utilized quantitative method using self-
administered questionnaire with drop and pickup
method. There were two set of questionnaire prepared
for this purpose, one is for the children and the other for
the parents. The set were identical except for the wording
to reflect the belonging of the statement to the children
and parents. A total of 1163 respondents were involved
in this study that comprised of 641 children and 522
parents. Respondents were selected from seven
secondary schools in Kuala Lumpur area. Sample
selection was based on stratified clustered sampling. The
criteria used for respondent selection were based on
school grade, total number of student, mixed school and
there are three ethnic groups at the school. Only grade A
and grade B school with total of students exceeding 1500
were selected as sample for this study. Later, the
respondents were selected based on students ratio
according to race: 5:4:1-Malay:Chinese:Indian. Students
were asked to completed the children set and bring back
the parents set to be completed by their either the mother
or father. They were given a week to complete the set
before it will be picked up by the research team. Data
were analyzed using SPSS software. Descriptive
statistics were used to describe the demographic profile
and inferential statistics were used to answer the
objectives of the study.
3. RESULTS
Table 1 describes about the demographic profile of
the respondent (parents-children).There are 522 parent’s
respondents and 641 children respondents involved in
this study. Half of the sample for parent’s respondents
accounted for male (54.9%); meanwhile for children
respondents it is the female being the highest with 50.7%.
The highest response according to race for both parents
and children are Malay, followed by Chinese and Indian;
for parents, Malay (56.9%), Chinese (32.8%) and Indian
(10.3%). While for children; Malay (55.6%), Chinese
(31.9%) and Indian (12.5%).The figures are in accordance
with the respondents ratio according to ethnic group
decided earlier.
It seems that from the parents and children answer,
most of them is a working father (76.6%) and have a
working father (92.0%). However, this does not apply
for the mother’s working situation. Half of the mother
answered that they are a working mother (50.2%), but
only 36.7% children answered that they have a working
mother. This may imply that maybe some of the children
do not know what their mother do for living or there is a
lack of communication between mother and children
regarding what their mother do. Finally, most of
respondents of this study (61.4%; parents and 57.5%;
children) have a small number of family members with
one to three children/siblings living together.
3.1. Parents-Children Interaction Time
Parents-children interaction time is studied from two
time frame; which are during weekdays and during
weekends and further divided between father and
mother. From Table 2 it can be seen that the father
interaction with the children surpass the mother for a
period of less than one hour and up to five hours
during weekdays (81.4% Vs 76.4%) and weekends
(57.2% Vs 56.2%).

Nurani Kamaruddin et al. / American Journal of Applied Sciences 9 (11) (2012) 1818-1823
1821
Science Publications
AJAS
Table 1. Parents-children demographic profile
Parents (n = 522) Children(n = 641)
--------------------- -------------------------
Demographic Profile Frequency (%) Frequency (%)
Gender
Male 303 54.9 316 49.3
Female 249 45.1 325 50.7
Race
Malay 307 55.6 365 56.9
Chinese 176 31.9 210 32.8
Indian 69 12.5 66 10.3
Working Father
Yes 423 76.6 590 92.0
No 129 23.4 51 8.0
Working Mother
Yes 277 50.2 235 36.7
No 275 49.8 406 63.3
Number of
children living
together/siblings
1-3 339 61.4 368 57.5
4-6 204 36.9 249 38.8
7-10 9 1.7 24 3.7
Table 2. Parent-Children interaction time during weekdays and
weekend
Father Mother
Interaction -------------------------- -------------------------
time Frequency (%) Frequency (%)
Weekdays
< 1 h 192 34.8 201 36.4
1. 1-3 h 147 26.6 132 23.9
3. 1-5 h 111 20.0 89 16.1
5. 1-7 h 48 8.7 62 11.2
7. 1 -9 h 23 4.2 34 6.2
9. 1-11h 18 3.3 11 2.0
> 11.1 h 13 2.4 23 4.2
Weekends
< 1 h 97 17.6 103 18.7
1. 1-3 h 142 25.7 134 24.3
3. 1- 5 h 77 13.9 73 13.2
5. 1-7 h 84 15.3 78 14.1
7. 1-9 h 49 8.9 44 8.0
9. 1-11 h 26 4.7 34 6.1
> 11.1 h 77 13.9 86 15.6
However, mother’s total interaction time (weekdays and
weekend) with the children is the longest as compared to
the father. Mother spent 23.6% for interaction time for
period of more than five hours and up to more than
eleven hours during weekdays and 43.8% during
weekends as compared 18.6% by father during weekdays
and 42.8% during weekends.
3.2. Parents’ Perception of Children Misconduct
Activities Versus Children Involvement
There were 26 types of misconduct listed whereby it
was later classified into ten categories. The category
can be seen as in Table 3 namely; school-related,
gamblings, internet/computer-related, substance abuse,
violent crime, theft, sexual offence, vandalisme,
gang related and others.
Table 3. Parents’ perception of children misconduct activities
versus children involvement
Parents (n = 522) Children (n = 641)
Category of --------------------- ------------------------
misconduct Mean S.D Mean S.D
School related 1.1839 0.356510 1.2668 0.45244
Gamblings 1.1743 0.486150 1.3526 0.61342
Internet/computer 1.1485 0.385050 1.1747 0.46340
related
Substance abuse 1.1169 0.295280 1.1642 0.43688
Violent crime 1.0910 0.229970 1.2184 0.40757
Theft 1.0690 0.289010 1.1513 0.47157
Sexual offence 1.0565 0.319200 1.3432 0.65966
Others 1.0453 0.235180 1.3779 0.50700
Vandalisme 1.0369 0.197650 1.1037 0.42638
Gang related 1.0297 0.019976 1.1456 0.40045
Table 4. Level of Misconduct
Level (%) Mean S.D.
Parents perspective 1.0690 0.268
Low (1-1.33) 93.5
Moderate (1.34-2.66) 6.1
High (2.37-4) 0.4
Children involvement 1.2137 0.454
Low (1-1.33) 80.5
Moderate (1.34-2.66) 17.6
High (2.37- 4) 1.9
Table 5. Correlation between misconduct and interaction time
Variables r p
Children’s views (n = 641)
Children-Father (Schooldays) -0.076 0.053
Children-Father (Weekend) -0.104 0.008
Children-Mother (Schooldays) -0.110 0.005
Children-Mother (Weekend) -0.134 0.001
Parents’ views (n = 522)
Father- Children (Schooldays) -0.021 0.636
Father-Children (Weekend) -0.033 0.448
Mother-Children (Schooldays) -0.011 0.796
Mother-Children (Weekend) -0.035 0.420
Of those listed, the top three highest category of
children misconduct perceived by parents is school
related (M = 1.1839), this is followed by gamblings (M =
1.1743) and internet/computer related (M = 1.1485). It
seems that the parents perception is quite differ from the
actual involvement by children. According to the
children, the highest category of misconduct by them is
others (M = 1.3779) which is falled under the eight
ranking in the parents perception. Others is represented
by involvement in illegal street racing, running away
from home and being cruel towards animal. This was
followed by gamblings (M = 1.3526) and surprisingly
sexual offense (M = 1.3432) is the third highest category
of misconduct involved by the children. This requires
immediate attention by the parents as it will evolve into
other serious matters in the future.

Nurani Kamaruddin et al. / American Journal of Applied Sciences 9 (11) (2012) 1818-1823
1822
Science Publications
AJAS
3.3. Level of Youth Misconduct
Overall, in this study it was identified that the level of
misconduct (refer to Table 4) from the parent’s
perspective (M = 1.069) and the children involvent (M =
1.2137) is low. This is considered a good findings for
this study. However, there is still a need to plan for
preventive action so that it will not escalate into
moderate or high level.
3.4. Interaction Time and Children Misconduct
Table 5 shows the relationship between interaction
time and youth misconduct. It seem that from the
children’s perspective, there is a significant negative
correlation for the three variables which are children-
father (weekend), children-mother (school days) and
children-mother (weekend). The negative correlation
indicates that interaction time has an inverse connection
with misconduct which means that if the higher the
interaction times, the lesser the tendency for the children
to be involved with misconduct activities. It was not
surprising to see that there is no connection between
children-father interactions during schooldays as we
have noted earlier on that children do spend more time
interacting with their mothers during school days.
However, it was interesting to see that parents’
overall do not perceive that interaction time will
correlate to their children’s misconduct activities. This is
something that needs a serious attention by all the
parents as many past researches have established that the
frequency of interacting with children will enhance the
parents-children relationship. This is supported by Jolly
(2007) where intimate relations develop between parents
and children will give them comfort for sharing
problems, feelings, hopes and also ideas.
4. DISCUSSION
The study showed that parents failed to see the
relationship between the time they spent with their
children and their children’s misconduct and this could
lead to higher level of children misconduct as identified
in previous studies (Sandberg and Hofferth, 2001);
Cashwell and Vacc, 1996). As such serious effort must
be taken to make parents understand their role in
ensuring that their children are not involved in any
activities considered as misconducts by communicating
more with their children. In line with this, it is suggested
that policy makers should provide more exposure in the
form of training, distribution of pamphlets and brochures
to parents so that they will understand vividly on
parental role especially in ensuring that they allocate
precious time to do activities together with their children
besides talking and listening to their children problems.
Moreover, that school may take the first step by
organizing more parents-child activities at school which
needs involvement of both parents and children. Previous
findings by Wherry (1992) in LaBahn (1995) had shown
that schools are important avenue that would generate a
high interaction process between parents and children. The
time spent in such activities may help improve
communication and thus reduce children’s involvement in
misconducts. Also parents themselves must take the
initiatives to organize family activities during free time such
as weekends and holiday. These activities may include
storytelling, cooking together, as well as problem solving
games that would require communication skills such as
listening, reasoning, tolerance between parents and children.
5. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, since past research has shown that
communication problem between parents and children as
one of the factors that make children to feel lonely and
depressed (Hartos and Power, 2000) and lead them to be
involved in social misconducts and since enhanced
communication between parents and children has been
identified as one of the important factors that could
prevent children from involved in social problems (Clark
and Shields, 1997); thus, more effort should be taken to
improve parents-children communication. Thus, a plan
should be laid out on how to educate the parents on the
importance of family communication. Among the
suggestions are organizing parents-children activities at
school and at home, conduct talks on parent-children
communication and encourage parents to spend more
time with their children by doing activities together.
6. REFERENCES
Alwin, D.F., 1996. From Childbearing to childrearing:
The link between declines in fertility and changes in
the socialization of children. Pop. Dev. Rev., 22:
176-196.
Barberet, R. and B.S. Fisher, 2009. Can security beget
insecurity? Security and crime prevention awareness
and fear of burglary among university students in
the East Midlands. Secur. J., 22: 3-23. DOI:
10.1057/sj.2008.9
Baucom, D.H., N. Epstein, L.A. Rankin and C.K.
Burnett, 1996. Assessing relationship standards: The
inventory of specific relationship standards. J. Fam.
Psyc., 10: 72-88.

Nurani Kamaruddin et al. / American Journal of Applied Sciences 9 (11) (2012) 1818-1823
1823
Science Publications
AJAS
Bernard, E. and M.B. Fenton, 2007. Bats in a fragmented
landscape: Species composition, diversity and
habitat interactions in savannas of Santarem, Central
Amazonia, Brazil. Biol. Conservation, 134: 332-
343. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2006.07.021
Cashwell, C.S. and N.A. Vacc, 1996. Family functioning
and risk behaviors: Influences on adolescent
delinquency. Sch. Couns., 44: 105-114.
Caughlin, J.P., 2003. Family communication standards.
What counts as excellent family communication and
how are such standards associated with family
satisfaction? Hum. Comm. Res., 29: 5-40.
Clark, R.D. and G. Shields, 1997. Family
communication and delinquency. Adolescence, 32:
81-92. PMID: 9105493
Elias, H and N. Noordin, 2011. The influence of parents
in adolescents’ misbehavior. J. Soc. Sci., 7: 423-427.
DOI: 10.3844/jssp.2011.423.427
Emmers-Sommer, T.M., 2004. The effect of
communication quality and quantity indicators on
intimacy and relational satisfaction. J. Soc. Pers.
Relat., 21: 399-411. DOI:
10.1177/0265407504042839
Fletcher, G.J.O., J.A. Simpson, G. Thomas and L. Giles,
1999. Ideals in intimate relationships. J. Pers. Soc.
Psyc., 76: 72-89. PMID: 9972554
Hartos, J.L. and T.G. Power, 2000. Association between
mother and adolescent reports for assessing relations
between parent-adolescent communication and
adolescent adjustment. J. Youth Adolescence, 29:
441-450. DOI: 10.1023/A:1005158425861
Jolly, C., 2007. Take charge in changing times:
Improving family communication. Family Life.
Klein, K., R. Forehand, L. Armistead and P. Long, 1997.
Delinquency during the transition to early
adulthood: Family and parenting predictors from
early adolescence. Adolescence, 32: 61-81. PMID:
9105492
Knapp, M.L. and J.A. Hall, 2009. Nonverbal
Communication in Human Interaction. 7th Edn.,
Wadsworth Publishing, ISBN-10: 0495568694, pp: 512.
Koerner, A.F. and M.A. Fitzpatrick, 1997. Family type
and conflict: The impact of conversation orientation
and conformity orientation on conflict in the family.
Commun. Stud., 48: 59-75. DOI:
10.1080/10510979709368491
Koerner, A.F. and M.A. Fitzpatrick, 2004.
Communication in Intact Families. In: Handbook of
Family Communication, Vangelisti, A.L., (Ed.).,
Routledge, ISBN-10: 0805841318, pp: 177-195.
LaBahn, J., 1995. Education and parental involvement in
secondary schools: Problems, solutions and effects.
Valdosta State University, GA.
Lingren, H.G., 1998. A new view of ‘quality time’.
Enriching family relationship. Ohio State University
Cooperative Extension.
Mastura, L. and R. Hamzah, 2007. Asas kaunseling
keluarga: Corak komunikasi berkesan. University
Teknologi Mara, Shah Alam.
McLeod, J.M. and S.H. Chaffee, 2007. The Construction
of Social Reality. In: The Social Influence Process,
Tedeschi, J. (Ed.)., Transaction Publishers, New
Brunswick, ISBN-10: 0202361497, pp: 50-59.
O’Hair, D., 1998. Strategic Communication in Business
and the Professions. 3rd Edn., Cengage Learning,
ISBN-10: 0395951844.
Poole, M.S., A.H.V.D. Ven, K. Dooley and M.E.
Holmes, 2000.
Organizational Change and
Innovation Processes: Theory and Methods for
Research. 1st Edn., Oxford University Press,
New
York, ISBN-10: 0195131983, pp: 416.
Rathus, S.A., 2010. Childhood and Adolescence: Voyage
in Development. 4th Edn., Cengage Learning,
Belmont, ISBN-10: 9780495904366, pp: 543.
Salleh, M.H., K. Nurani, O.S. Zobidah, A. Musa and I.
Narimah et al., 2009. Family communication quality
measurement index: Strategy in handling the
teenagers’ offences.
Sandberg, J.F. and S.L. Hofferth, 2001. Changes in
children’s time with parents: United states, 1981-
1997. Demography, 38: 423-436. DOI:
10.1353/dem.2001.0031
Segrin, C. and J. Flora, 2005. Family Communication.
1st Edn., Routledge, ISBN-10: 0805847987, pp: 504.
Smith, K.V., P.A. Freeman and R.B. Zabriskie, 2009. An
examination of family communication within the
core and balance model of family leisure
functioning. Family Relat., 58: 79-90. DOI:
10.1111/j.1741-3729.2008.00536.x
Vangelisti, A.L. and J.A. Daly, 1997. Gender differences
in standards for romantic relationships. Pers. Rel., 4:
203-219. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.1997.tb00140.x
Vangelisti, A.L., L.P. Crumley and J.L. Baker, 1999.
Family portraits: Stories as standards for family
relationships. J. Soc. Pers. Rel., 16: 335-368. DOI:
10.1177/0265407599163004
Wherry, J.H., 1992. Getting parents involved. Ed. Dig.
J., 66: 34-35.