A model of monitoring interactions was proposed that is based on behavioural principles and places episodic parent-adolescent interactions at the centre of analysis for monitoring. The process-monitoring model contends that monitoring is an interactive process between parents and their adolescents, nested within a social setting. In the model it is proposed that monitoring occurs in discrete episodes that change over the course of adolescent development. To explain monitoring interactions it is essential to expand research to include a functional assessment of monitoring exchanges between parents and adolescents and to also measure the quality of parent-adolescent relationships, consider adolescent age and development, parental characteristics, and the context of the family. (Contains 1 figure.)