This study examined parents' provision of academic structure, and whether they implement it in an autonomy supportive or controlling manner, in relation to children's competence-related beliefs, motivation, and academic behavior over the transition to middle school. Interviews with 160 sixth-grade children were coded on parental structure and autonomy support. Children reported on their competence-related beliefs, motivation, and engagement in sixth and seventh grades. Regression analyses showed that higher structure predicted seventh-grade perceived competence, intrinsic motivation, engagement, and English grades, controlling for these same outcomes at sixth grade. Autonomy support predicted perceived competence, autonomous motivation, and English grades, controlling for prior outcomes. Structural equation models indicated that relations between structure and engagement and between autonomy support and grades were mediated by perceived competence.

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This study examined the associations among disruptive life events, supportive parenting practices, adolescent self‐perceptions, and emotional outcomes. One‐hundred and three 7th graders (68% minority, 32% European American) and their parents completed recent negative life events checklists. Parents also reported the total number of major transitions (changes in residences, schools, parent's romantic partners) that adolescents experienced since birth. Life events were related to lower adolescent‐reported perceptions of competence and control, higher adolescent‐reported depression and behavior problems, and higher parent‐reported conduct problems. Regression analyses supported a mediational model in which competence and control perceptions explained relations between adolescent life events and symptomatology. Parental structure—the provision of clear, consistent and predictable rules and expectations—was associated with more adaptive adolescent functioning, especially among girls. Regressions indicated that structure related to higher perceptions of competence and control and fewer behavioral problems, even after accounting for the risk associated with negative life events and transitions.

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