Category: Child Psychology

This parenting style raises delinquent children.

Authoritarian parents are more likely to raise children who are disrespectful and delinquent, research finds.

Parents who are authoritarian tend to have very high standards for their children, punish them severely and are also cold and non-nurturing.

They have no patience with bad behaviour, they don’t trust their children and they do not negotiate.

The problem is that children do not see them as legitimate authority figures — which is what creates problems.

Dr Rick Trinkner, the study’s first author, said:

“When children consider their parents to be legitimate authority figures, they trust the parent and feel they have an obligation to do what their parents tell them to do.

This is an important attribute for any authority figure to possess, as the parent does not have to rely on a system of rewards and punishments to control behavior, and the child is more likely to follow the rules when the parent is not physically present.”

The authoritative parenting style, in comparison to the authoritarian style, is an effective way to raise children.

An authoritative parent can be both controlling and demanding, but is also warm and receptive to children.

Authoritative parents gain their children’s trust by explaining the reasons for the rules and listening to their child’s input.

Dr Trinkner said:

“Our results showed that parental legitimacy was an important mechanism by which parenting styles affected adolescent behavior.”

Adolescents who perceived parents as legitimate were then less likely to engage in delinquent behavior.

Thus, authoritative parenting may be more effective than the other styles because this style makes adolescents more willing to accept their parents’ attempts to socialize them and subsequently follow their rules.”

The conclusions come from data collected through the New Hampshire Youth Study, which looked at the factors affecting adolescent delinquency.

Authoritarian parents were not seen positively by their children, said Dr Trinkner:

“Conversely, authoritarian parents have the opposite effect in that they actually reduce the likelihood of their children perceiving their authority as legitimate.

Adolescents from authoritarian parents are more likely to resist their parents’ attempts at socialization.”

The study was published in the Journal of Adolescence (Trinkner et al., 2012).

How parents quadruple the risk of their children having mental health problems.

Childhood traumas are ‘passed on’ from one generation to the next, new research shows.

Mothers are more likely to ‘pass on’ their trauma to their children than fathers, the study found.

People whose parents suffered four childhood traumas, such as separation of their parents or abuse, were four times more likely to have mental health problems.

Children of parents who had suffered childhood traumas were also at double the risk of developing ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder).

Dr Adam Schickedanz, the study’s first author, said:

“Previous research has looked at childhood trauma as a risk factor for later physical and mental health problems in adulthood, but this is the first research to show that the long-term behavioral health harms of childhood adversity extend across generations from parent to child.”

The results come from a US national survey of four generations of American families.

Details of any childhood abuse, maltreatment or family stressors were collected.

The results revealed a strong link between parents who had experienced abuse as children and behavioural problems in their children.

Dr Schickedanz said:

“If we can identify these children who are at a higher risk, we can connect them to services that might reduce their risk or prevent behavioral health problems.”

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics (Schickedanz et al., 2018).