Parent‐Adolescent Relationships, Physical Disciplinary History, and Adjustment in Adolescents

Abstract

Physical discipline occurs within the context of the parent-child relationship, yet it is often not examined within this important context. The current study examined whether negative effects of physical discipline on older adolescent adjustment are mediated by the overall parent-child relationship. The sample consisted of 253, mostly Caucasian, middle-class, adolescent participants (mean age = 18.4, 67% female). Physical punishment history, parent-adolescent relationships, and adjustment were assessed with self-report instruments. For females, relationships with parents partially mediated the association between physical punishment and adjustment. Physical punishment was negatively associated with both adjustment and parent-adolescent relationships. For males, physical punishment was not related to adjustment. Parent-adolescent relationships were positively associated with adjustment for both females and males. Physical punishment by fathers was negatively associated with father-son relationships. The results suggest the importance of exploring links between physical punishment and adjustment within the context of parent-child relationship, as well as examining males, females, mothers, and fathers separately.

Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review.

“…Although race and SES have been used prominently in a few recent studies as moderators of the effects of corporal punishment (e.g., Deater-Deckard, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1996;Gunnoe & Mariner, 1997;McLeod, Kruttschnitt, & Dornfeld, 1994;Straus, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997), only 44% of the studies collected for the meta-analyses reported the racial-ethnic affiliations of their participants, and only 27% reported their SES. Only 4 of the 90 studies reported parenting style as a possible moderator (DeVet, 1997;Levin & Sears, 1956;Simons, Johnson, & Conger, 1994;Straus & Mouradian, 1998). Such low incidence across the studies in the meta-analyses precluded testing race, SES, or parenting style as moderators.…”

“…Corporal punishment used by a warm parent is more likely to achieve positive outcomes because such warmth engenders feelings of trust in and reciprocity toward the parent (Grusec & Goodnow, 1994;Maccoby, 1980;Maccoby & Martin, 1983), which in turn may buffer the potential harmful effects of corporal punishment on children's behavior problems (Deater-Deckard & Dodge, 1997). The presence of warmth in a parenting style has been found to predict more desirable associations between child behaviors and experiences and corporal punishment (e.g., Deater-Deckard & Dodge, 1997;DeVet, 1997;Kochanska, 1997b;Rohner et al, 1996;Sears et al, 1957;Smith & Brooks-Gunn, 1997). If it occurs in the context of an overall negative parenting style, corporal punishment is associated with more negative behaviors and experiences (Campbell & Frabutt, 1999;Olweus, 1980).…”

“…Whether corporal punishment is used in the context of a child-centered, responsive, and authoritative parenting style can determine if it achieves positive or negative child constructs (Baumrind, 1967(Baumrind, , 1996b. Because parents who spank tend to use other negative techniques such as yelling (Hemenway, Solnick, & Carter, 1994;Wissow, 2001), some have argued that the negative effects attributed to corporal punishment alone may in fact be a result of a cluster of harmful techniques comprised by a negative parenting style (Darling & Steinberg, 1993;DeVet, 1997;Levin & Sears, 1956;Patterson, 1982;Simons, Johnson, & Conger, 1994;Straus & Mouradian, 1998). Indeed, corporal punishment has been negatively associated with parents' self-reported rates of reading to, playing with, and hugging their children (Wissow, 2001).…”

The Relation of Parental Qualities to Psychological Well-being, School Adjustment, and Problem Behavior in Chinese Adolescents with Economic Disadvantage

“…In addition, because these processes are centred around the father or mother, it would be interesting to ask how parental qualities in relation to these dyadic processes are related to child adjustment outcomes. While there are studies indicating that paternal influences are more important than maternal influences (e.g., Johnson, 1987), there are studies showing that maternal influences are more important than paternal influences (e.g., Zemore & Rinholm, 1989) or there are no differences between the influences of the fathers and mothers (e.g., Devet, 1997). Because the available evidence on the differential contributions of fathers and mothers are quite mixed (Phares & Compas, 1992), there is a need to accumulate more related research findings.…”

Revisão de literatura da punição corporal

“…A maioria das pesquisas dessa categoria encontrou associação da punição corporal com algum aspecto do filho, criança ou adolescente. Correlações negativas apareceram entre uso da punição corporal e ajustamento psicológico (DeVet, 1997;Rohner, Kean & Cournoyer, 1991); desempenho acadêmico de adolescentes sul-africanos (Cherian, 1994); autoconceito (Barrish, 1996); relacionamento entre pais e adolescentes (De Vet, 1997); e bem-estar geral (Bachar, Canetti, Bonne, Denour & Shalev, 1997). Correlações positivas foram encontradas entre uso da punição corporal e posteriores sintomas depressivos, pensamentos suicidas, abuso de álcool e violência contra esposa (Straus & Kantor, 1994); agressividade com os colegas (Strassberg, Dodge, Pettit & Bates, 1994); angústia e depressão (Turner & Finkelhor, 1996); sintomas psiquiátricos (Backar & cols., 1997); tendência de se engajar em comportamentos anti-sociais e de agir impulsivamente (Straus & Mouradian, 1998); envolvimento com brigas (Simons, Lin & Gordon, 1998); crueldades com animais na infância ou na adolescência (Flynn, 1999); psicopatologias (Spencer, 1999); suicídio, depressão e violência contra parceiro na vida adulta (Good, 1999); problemas socioemocionais das crianças (Eamon & Zuehl, 2001); depressão, ansiedade, uso de álcool, comportamento anti-social (Frias-Armenta, 2002); ansiedade, depressão, comportamento anti-social, dificuldades em relações com pares nas crianças afro-americanas e nas euro-americanas (Matta, 2002).…”