In this chapter, we review theory and research regarding sources and predictors of parental knowledge. Specifically, we focus on adolescents’ information management, parenting and parent–adolescent relationships, parents’ and adolescents’ characteristics, and family context as sources and predictors of parental knowledge of adolescents’ activities, whereabouts, and associations. The findings show that disclosure and secrecy are fundamental sources of parental knowledge and that when parent–adolescent relationships are positive (e.g. warm, trusting, and autonomy supportive), parents are more likely to acquire accurate knowledge about their adolescents’ daily lives. The impact of parental solicitation and rule-setting on parental knowledge often depends on many other factors such as parenting or cultural context. Parental knowledge also differs as a function of parent gender, adolescent age and gender, adolescent well-being, family structure, ethnic background, and cultural values. We provide future directions for research and emphasize the need for theory-driven research.

Coping strategies are important determinants of resilience, however it is often difficult to isolate such processes at the animal level where the underlying neurobiology can be explored. Here we review research indicating that the degree to which an organism can exert control over adverse events, a key element of coping, potently modulates the impact of the event, with uncontrollable stressors producing outcomes that do not occur if the stressor is controllable. The data suggest that the stress-resistance produced by control depends on activation of distinct neural systems involving the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). In addition, the experience of control changes how the mPFC responds to future adverse events, even those that are uncontrollable, thereby providing resilience that is both enduring and trans-situational. We also address sex differences within controllability phenomena, the extent to which other resilience-promoting factors engage similar circuitry, and the clinical implications of these findings.