Perceived parenting and adolescents’ adjustment

Abstract

Adolescence is an important developmental period that is characterised by heightened problems of adjustment. The aim of this study is to analyse adolescents' adjustment, and to explore the typologies and dimensions of parenting, and thus to determine the relationships between these factors. The sample comprised 1285 adolescent students aged 12 to 16 from the Basque Country (Spain). The students filled out the self-report of the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) and the Parental Acceptance-Rejection/Control Questionnaire, (PARQ/Control). Differences by age were found in the adolescents' school maladjustment and parenting style perception. Moreover, perceptions of little parental warmth were related to higher levels of clinical and school maladjustment, and the lower the parental control, the greater the clinical maladjustment. Finally, the results obtained revealed that the interaction between the mothers' and fathers' parenting styles was significant only for clinical maladjustment; those students with neglectful mothers and authoritative fathers presented the highest level of clinical maladjustment, followed by other combinations of neglectful mothers. Furthermore, the students from neglectful and authoritarian families presented the highest levels of school maladjustment, without differences between neglectful and authoritarian or between indulgent and authoritative families.

Parental Socialization Styles: The Contribution of Paternal and Maternal Affect/Communication and Strictness to Family Socialization Style

“…The present study aimed to explore the influence of parenting practices on the establishment of family socialization style, understood as an emotional context or climate [13] in which parenting practices may acquire different meaning when both the mother’s and father’s affect-communication and strictness are combined. Previous studies have often focused on analyzing the style of a single parent, mainly the mother [22,37], although subsequently the weight of both parents in adolescent socialization and development has been recognized, with some authors studying the effect of each parent’s practices on children’s adjustment or maladjustment separately [24,25,26,41,69].…”

“…One specific element of this would be consistency between parents, which despite being considered vital to children’s adjustment, has received relatively little empirical attention [53]. Indeed, the few previous studies which have been carried out in this field seem to indicate better adjustment among adolescents whose parents have similar parenting styles, characterized by a predominance of affect-communication [22,33,35,84], a finding which is consistent with the results observed here, which suggest that the affect-communication of both parents makes a significant and positive contribution to family style. Nevertheless, it has yet to be confirmed whether consistency between maternal and paternal parenting practices [35,84,85,86] really does foster a family socialization style that is more positive for children’s and young people’s development, and if so, how specifically it contributes to said psycho-social adjustment.…”

“…The consensus regarding the demandingness dimension, often defined as control, is not as broad [21], perhaps due to the variety of different conceptions that have been proposed [22] since the initial pioneering studies [9,13]. For example, demandingness has been found to be positive when understood as behavioral control and supervision of adolescents’ conduct [22,23], although not when it takes the form of coercive and psychological control [1,14,24,25]. The general trend is to consider psychological control as being detrimental to children’s development, while behavioral control is only harmful if it becomes coercive [9] and adolescents perceive it as excessively invasive or affecting aspects they do not consider to come under the purview of parental authority [26].…”

“…Analyzing how the father’s and the mother’s practices combine with each other provides a more realistic insight into two-parent households and families [34]. Nevertheless, previous studies have rarely taken both parents (mother and father) into account [35,36], tending to place more emphasis on the maternal style than the paternal one [22,37], possibly because women have traditionally spent more time with their children than men [38,39], assuming greater responsibility for their care and upbringing [21,40].…”

Relationship between Parental Socialization, Emotional Symptoms, and Academic Performance during Adolescence: The Influence of Parents’ and Teenagers’ Gender

“…Research about this concept has obtained less consistent results [32], especially in different cultural contexts [14,16]. Some studies have found that greater parental control is related to adolescents’ better psychological adjustment [32,33,34,35], fewer antisocial and criminal activities [34,36], and a later sexual initiation [37], whereas others find a negative effect related to emotional [36,38,39,40] and behavioral problems [41]. Similarly, some studies have found a positive relationship between parental behavioral control and academic performance in European-American teenagers, but not in African-American ones [33], whereas others have found no association [35] or a negative association [25].…”