Parental Discipline in Emerging Adulthood: The Creation and Validation of the Domains of Young Adult Discipline Scale (DYADS)

Abstract

Emerging evidence suggests that parents engage in discipline practices during emerging adulthood, and the use of physical discipline is associated with negative mental health outcomes for emerging adults. However, it appears that no measure of discipline strategies used in emerging adulthood exists. The current study developed the Domains of Young Adult Discipline Scale (DYADS), a measure of parental discipline during emerging adulthood. After item construction, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on a random half of the data ( N = 288), followed by a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the second random half of the data ( N = 304). Results of the CFA supported the factor structure of the EFA (i.e., three-factor structure) and revealed the best fitting model contained 24 items. The DYADS correlated with measures of parenting style and discipline as well as a measure of emerging adult mental health. Implications for future research are discussed.

Parental Discipline During Emerging Adulthood: A Person-Centered Approach

“…This measure is a 24-item scale designed to assess discipline strategies used by parents of emerging adults. Factor analysis in a prior study confirmed a three-factor structure of abuse, approval, and disappointment (Walker & McKinney, 2019). The abuse subscale contains items suggesting power assertion of the parent by use of physical force and restriction of resources (e.g., damages or destroys my property; punches me).…”

“…The disappointment subscale assesses critical and disapproving parenting behaviors (e.g., expresses doubt about my decisions or actions; tells me “I should do better” ). The DYADS demonstrated good convergent validity as it correlated with other measures of parenting style, discipline, and mental health outcomes (Walker & McKinney, 2019). The DYADS demonstrated good internal consistency in the current study (alphas ranging from .89 to .92 across scales in females and males).…”

“…Thus, a call is made to better understand the nature of this abuse during adulthood, particularly with different types of methods. For example, Walker and McKinney (2019) used focus groups of emerging adults to better understand parental discipline during emerging adulthood, where some emerging adults corroborated in face-to-face interviews that their parents engaged in physically and psychologically abusive behaviors toward them.…”

“…Recent research has demonstrated that parents continue to discipline their children into emerging adulthood, using many similar strategies that are utilized with younger children but also with developmentally appropriate differences (e.g., time out is not practical with emerging adults at college). Walker and McKinney (2019) recently investigated the effects of discipline on emerging adults using a newly validated measure designed specifically for emerging adults. Through reliance on other discipline measures, focus groups, and factor analyses, they found three domains of parental discipline during emerging adulthood.…”

“…Hypothesis 1 stated that the following discipline profiles would be best supported by LPA: (a) High approval, low disappointment and abuse, (b) high disappointment, low approval and abuse, (c) high disappointment and abuse, low approval. Hypothesis 2 stated that profiles high in approval, compared to profiles high in disappointment and/or abuse, would be associated with lower parental and emerging adult psychological problems (i.e., maternal, paternal, and emerging adult internalizing and externalizing problems; Walker & McKinney, 2019). Hypothesis 3 stated that the associations of discipline profiles with parental and emerging adult psychological problems would be moderated by emerging adult gender.…”