Associations between parenting style, physical discipline, and adjustment in adolescents' reports.
Recollections of physical discipline as absent, age-delimited (ages 2-11), or present into adolescence were associated with youths' evaluations of their mothers' and fathers' parenting styles and their own adjustment. Data were from the Portraits of American Life Study-Youth (PALS-Y) a diverse, national sample of 13- to 18-year-olds (N = 158). The modal experience of youth with authoritative parents was age-delimited spanking; the modal experience of youth with permissive parents was no spanking; the modal experience of youth with authoritarian or disengaged parents was physical discipline into adolescence. The age-delimited group reported the best adjustment (less maladjustment than the adolescent group; greater competence than both other groups). The positive association between fathers' age-delimited spanking and youths' academic rank persisted even after accounting for parenting styles. The eschewing of spanking should not be listed as a distinguishing characteristic of authoritative parenting, which was more often associated with age-delimited spanking than with zero-usage.
Psychology Department, Calvin College, 1734 Knollcrest Cir. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546, USA. mgunnoe@calvin.edu
Marjorie Lindner
ML
Gunnoe
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D001318:Authoritarianism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D012917:Social Adjustment