Associations of parenting dimensions and styles with externalizing problems of children and adolescents: An updated meta-analysis.

Abstract

The present meta-analysis integrates research from 1,435 studies on associations of parenting dimensions and styles with externalizing symptoms in children and adolescents. Parental warmth, behavioral control, autonomy granting, and an authoritative parenting style showed very small to small negative concurrent and longitudinal associations with externalizing problems. In contrast, harsh control, psychological control, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful parenting were associated with higher levels of externalizing problems. The strongest associations were observed for harsh control and psychological control. Parental warmth, behavioral control, harsh control, psychological control, autonomy granting, authoritative, and permissive parenting predicted change in externalizing problems over time, with associations of externalizing problems with warmth, behavioral control, harsh control, psychological control, and authoritative parenting being bidirectional. Moderating effects of sampling, child's age, form of externalizing problems, rater of parenting and externalizing problems, quality of measures, and publication status were identified. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

A biopsychosocial approach to processes and pathways in the development of overweight and obesity in childhood: Insights from developmental theory and research

“…A consistent theme in the developmental literature has been that children evoke or elicit parental reactions and behavior 79,106,231,250,251,254,290. For example, in a meta‐analysis of parenting and the development of externalizing problems in children and adolescents based on longitudinal and cross‐lagged associations, Pinquart showed that there were bidirectional associations between child externalizing and parental warmth, behavioral control, harsh control, psychological control, and authoritative parenting, although the effects were small and were moderated by a number of variables, including child age (the associations were stronger in older samples). These results suggest that parents tend to respond to child externalizing behavior with increased harsh and psychological control and/or by being more tolerant of the behavior through reduced behavioral control and authoritative parenting.…”

The Role of Child Personality in Effects of Psychologically Controlling Parenting: An Examination at the Level of Daily Fluctuations

“…This finding may seem surprising at first sight because Barber () initially hypothesized that psychologically controlling parenting would be primarily predictive of internalizing problems. However, recent meta‐analyses demonstrated that associations of parental psychological control with externalizing problems (average r = 0.22; Pinquart, ) are equally pronounced compared with associations with internalizing problems (average r = 24; Pinquart, ). To explain the association with externalizing problems, Van Petegem, Soenens, Vansteenkiste, and Beyers () hypothesized and showed that psychologically controlling parenting elicits reactance against parental authority among adolescents, with such reactance, in turn, increasing risk for externalizing problems.…”

“…Because associations between psychologically controlling parenting and child maladjustment are known to be bidirectional in nature across longer periods of time (e.g. six months or a year; Janssens et al, ; Pinquart, , ; Soenens et al, ), we also examined whether such reciprocal associations would emerge on a day‐to‐day basis. However, our cross‐lagged analyses (where psychological control displayed on one day was modeled as a predictor of increases in child maladjustment from one day to the next and vice versa) failed to provide clear evidence for reciprocal effects.…”

“…Such findings have been obtained not only in cross‐sectional studies but also in longitudinal studies, suggesting that parental psychological control has negative implications in the long run, for example, psychological control related to diminished self‐confidence over a three‐year period (Conger, Conger, & Scaramella, ) and increased internalizing problems such as depressive symptoms (Soenens et al, ) and externalizing problems such as aggression (Blossom, Fite, Frazer, Cooley, & Evans, ; Nelson, Coyne, Swanson, Hart, & Olsen, ). Longitudinal research has also demonstrated that associations between psychologically controlling parenting and child maladjustment are bidirectional in nature, with children's internalizing or externalizing problems eliciting more psychologically controlling parenting (Janssens et al, ; Pinquart, , ; Soenens et al, ).…”

Effects of Parenting Stress and Controlling Parenting Attitudes on Problem Behaviors of Preschool Children: Latent Growth Model Analysis

“…Hostility and irrational parenting attitudes can also hinder children's positive development because they form negative representations of their parents, which not only increase their externalizing problem behaviors but also have long-term negative effects [16].…”