1. The Influence of Parenting on
Adolescent Academic Success
and Well-being
Claudia, Xueli and Jin
24. 01.2006

2. Overview
 The influence of parenting practices on Adolescent Academic
Success and Well-being
- The relationship between parenting practices and adolescent
school achievement
- The influence of parenting practices on adolescent well-being:
A specific study: The family context of gender intensification
in early adolescence.
 The influence of parenting styles on Adolescent Academic Success
and well-being
- Theoretical background of parenting styles
- A specific study : Over-time changes in adjustment and academic
competence among adolescent from authoritative, authoritarian,
indulgent, and neglectful families.

3. Parenting practices
 Definition :
Parenting practices refer to
specific behaviors that parents
use to socialize their children
(Darling & Steinberg, 1993)
Parenting practices include
some constructs:
- parental involvement
- parental monitoring
- parental goals, values, and
aspirations

5. Parenting practices:
Parental involvement
Two types of parental involvement practices (Epstein, 1996):
 parents-initiated involvement practices
Parents-initiated involvement practices represent parental
efforts to become directly involved with school decisions and
activities.
 school-initiated involvement practices
School-initiated involvement practices represent efforts by the
school to provide parents with routine information about school
policies, procedure, and events, as well as their children’ s
progress.

6. Parenting practices:
Parental involvement
 Research findings:
 There is a strong positive relationship between parents-
initiated involvement practices and school outcomes
(Epstein and Sanders, 2002; Hess and Holloway, 1984)
- Parental assistance with homework is positively related to
the amount of time adolescents spend on their homework
(Becker and Epstein, 1982; Stevenson and Baker, 1987).
- A strong positive relationship between school-initiated
involvement practices and children’s school achievement
(Greenwood and Hickman, 1991).

7. Parenting practices:
Parental involvement
 Research findings:
 Parental involvement declines in adolescence.
- Epstein and Dauber (1991) found that the level of parental
involvement with school activities was stronger in elementary
school than middle school.
- A National Household Education Survey conducted by U.S.
Department of Education (1998) found that the provision of
opportunities by schools for parents to participate in school
activities declined in middle school.

8. Parenting practices:
Parental monitoring
 Parenting monitoring refer to
the construct used to explain
parenting behaviors,
knowledge, or attitudes that
influence adolescent use of
free time:
- monitoring the completion of
homework
- supervising activities with
peers
- checking on school progress.

9. Parenting practices:
Parental monitoring
 Research findings:
- Muller and Kerbow (1993): parental involvement with and
monitoring of homework is related to adolescents’ completion of
homework.
- Clerk (1993) : parents of children who monitor their children’s
behavior after school were more likely to have high achieving
children than parents who do not monitor their children’s after-
school behavior.
- Muller (1993) : parents’ knowledge of their adolescent’s friends
was positively related to their child’s standardized achievement
scores.

10. Parenting practices:
Parental goals, values and aspirations
 A primary way parents socialize
their children is by communicating
the goals they want their children to
attain, the aspirations they want
their children to fulfill, and the
values they want their children to
internalize, such as finishing
homework on time, graduating high
school or attending college.

11. Parenting practices:
Parental goals, values and aspirations
 Research finding:
Parental aspirations, goals, and values are related to their
children’s setting of academic goals, persistence in school,
course enrollment, intellectual accomplishments, and
attendance of college (Astone and Mclanahan,1991; Crandall
et al., 1964; Keeves, 1972; Pugh,1976)

12. The Family Context of Gender Intensification
in Early Adolescence
Ann C. Crouter, Beth A. Manke, and Susan M. Mchale

13. Gender Intensification
In this article, gender intensification refers
to divergence over time in adolescent
boys and girls daily experiences in their
families.

14. Family Context
 The traditionality of parents’
division of housework.
 Traditional pattern --
Families in which mothers
performed more than 75% of
all housework were
categorized as traditional.
 Egalitarian pattern --
Families in which mothers
performed less than 75% of all
housework were categorized
as egalitarian.
 The presence of a younger sibling of the opposite sex.

15. Hypothesis
Girl Boy
Household chores More involved in More involved in
feminine household masculine household
tasks tasks
Dyadic activities with More involved in More involved in
parents dyadic activities dyadic activities with
with mothers fathers
Parents’ monitoring Receiving more Receiving less
parental monitoring parental monitoring
over time over time

16. Methods
-- Participating criteria
 The fourth or grader was the oldest child in the family,
and there was at least one younger sibling
 The family was intact
Age and Si ze
 The father was
employed full-time, Husband' s age
37. 4
37. 8
and mothers’ work wi f e' s age
35. 8
hours were
36. 3
variable.
7. 2
Si bl i ng' s age
7. 5
10. 4
Adol escent ' s age
10. 4 Egal i t ar i an Fami l i es
Fam l y si ze
i
4. 4 Tr adi t i onal Fami l i es
4. 5
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

17. Husband' s j ob pr est i ge
W k and Educat i on
or
53. 3
53. 3
Methods
48. 1
W f e' s j ob pr est i ge
i
42. 1
45. 2
--
Husband' s wor k hour s
50. 2
23. 71
W f e' s wor k hour s
i
11. 38
Sample
W f e' s educat i on
i
5. 4
5. 1
Egal i t ar i an Fam l i es
i
Husband' s educat i on
4. 9 Tr adi t i onal Fam l i es
i
4. 6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
I ncome
$29, 195
Hus band' s i ncome
$30, 033
$10, 160
W f e' s i ncom
i e Egal i t ar i an Fam l i es
i
$3, 568
Tr adi t i onal Fam l i es
i
$0 $5, 000 $10, 000 $15, 000 $20, 000 $25, 000 $30, 000 $35, 000

18. Methods
-- Process
Phase 1 One year Phase 2
later
At both phases, families participated in two types
of data collection.
 Home interview
 Telephone interviews

19. Results 1
-- Adolescents' Involvement in Feminine Household Tasks
 Adolescents generally
decreasing their involvement in
feminine tasks.
 Girls spend more time in
feminine tasks than boys.

20. Results 2
-- Adolescents' Involvement in Feminine Household Tasks
Adolescents' participation in feminine household tasks
 Girls in traditional
families with brothers 150
maintained a high
level of involvement in 114.2 118.9
these activities over 100 97.2
time.
Participation(Mins.)
71.4
 While the rest of the 50 Girls with younger brothers in
traditonal families
sample evidenced All others
declining participation.
0
Time 1 Time 2

21. Results
-- Adolescents' Involvement in Masculine Household Tasks
Adolescents' participation in masculine household tasks
 Boys in traditional
families increased their 80
involvement in masculine 70
tasks over the year. 60
50
Other adolescents
Participantion(Mins.)

40
generally decreased their 30
participation in these 20
activities. 10
0
Time 1 Time 2
Boys in traditional families Girls in traditional families
Boys in egalitarian families Girls in egalitarian families

22. Results 3
-- Adolescents’ Involvement in Joint activities with Parents
 Mothers were more involved in joint activities than
fathers.
 Boys increased their involvement with father over time
and girls increased their involvement with mother.

23. Results 4
-- Adolescents’ Involvement
in Joint activities with Parents
Dyanic involvement with mother
150
 Boys with younger sisters
100 exhibited a grater increase
over time in their joint
Involvement(Mins.)
50 activities with fathers than
did all other adolescents.
0
Time 1 Time 2
Boys with younger brothers Boys with younger sisters
Girls with younger brothers Girls with younger sisters

24. Results 5
-- Adolescents’ Involvement in Joint
activities with Parents
Dyanic involvement with father
 Girls with younger 150
brothers increased their
involvement in dyadic 100
activities with mothers Involvement (Mins.)
more over time than did 50
all other adolescents.
0
Time 1 Time 2
Boys with younger brothers Boys with younger sisters
Girls with younger brothers Girls with younger sisters

25. Results 6
-- Parental Monitoring
 Parents became better monitors over time, and
mothers were generally better monitors than
fathers.
 Parents in traditional families became better at
monitoring over time, while their counterparts in
egalitarian households maintained their level of
involvement in monitoring over time.

26. Discussion 1
1. The traditionality of parents’ division of housework was
related to adolescents’ increasingly sex-typed patterns
of involvement in feminine and masculine household
chores over time.
 Girls exhibited an increasingly sex-typed pattern on
involvement in feminine household tasks over time
 when their parents divided chores along traditional gender lines
 when a younger sibling of the opposite sex was present
 Boys exhibited the pattern of gender intensification in
masculine task involvement
 when parents divided housework along traditional lines, regardless of
the sex of the younger sibling

27. Discussion 2
2. The traditionality of parents’ division of
housework, however was not associated with
longitudinal patterns of boys’ and girls’ dyadic
activities with mothers and fathers.
 The general pattern here was one of gender
intensification exacerbated by the presence of a
younger sibling of the opposite sex.

28. Discussion 3
3. We fail to find a pattern of gender intensification
that parents become more protective of
daughters tan of sons in early adolescence.
Reasons:
 The measure may not focus on the right issues.
 The sample might be not old enough.
 Others

29. Overview
 The influence of parenting practices on Adolescent Academic
Success and Well-being
- The relationship between parenting practices and adolescent
school achievement
- The influence of parenting practices on adolescent well-being:
A specific study: The family context of gender intensification
in early adolescent.
 The influence of parenting styles on Adolescent Academic
Success and well-being
- Introduction to parenting styles
- A specific study : Over-time changes in adjustment and academic
competence among adolescent from authoritative, authoritarian,
indulgent, and neglectful families.

30. Parenting Styles
 The construct of parenting style is used to
capture normal variations in parents’ attempts to
control and socialize their children (Baumrind,
1991)

31. Parenting Styles
 In the early work on parenting style, there were many
researchers who classified parenting styles in different
dimensions:
- love-oriented / object-oriented (Sears et al.,1957)
- responsiveness / unresponsiveness (Baldwin, 1948; Freud,
1933; Rogers, 1960; Sear et al.,1957; Schaefer, 1959)
- democratic / autocratic (Baldwin, 1948)
- emotionally involved / uninvolved (Baldwin, 1948)
- control / noncontrol (Schaefer, 1959)
- acceptance / rejection (Symonds,1993)
- dominance/ submission (Symonds,1993)
- restrictiveness / permissiveness (Becker,1964)

32. Four types of parenting styles
 There are four types of parenting styles: Authoritative, Authoritarian,
Indulgent and Uninvolved. Each of the patterns has a distinct balance of
parental responsiveness and demandingness (Maccoby & Martin, 1983).
- Parental responsiveness (parental warmth or supportiveness)
refers to "the extent to which parents intentionally foster individuality, self-
regulation, and self-assertion by being attuned, supportive, and acquiescent
to children's special needs and demands" (Baumrind, 1991, p. 62).
- Parental demandingness (behavioral control) refers to "the claims parents
make on children to become integrated into the family whole, by their
maturity demands, supervision, disciplinary efforts and willingness to
confront the child who disobeys" (Baumrind, 1991, pp. 61- 62).

33. Four types of parenting styles
 Four parenting styles
Responsivenss
high
Indulgent Authoritative
low high
Demandingness
Uninvolved Authoritarian
low

34. Four types of parenting styles
 What are the characteristics of these
four types of parenting styles?
- Authoritative
- Authoritarian
- Indulgent
- Uninvolved

35. Parenting style
Characteristics of the four parenting styles (I)
(Baumrind, 1971 & Maccoby and Martin, 1983)
 Indulgent /permissive parents:
-more responsive than demanding
-do not require mature behaviour
-avoid confrontation
 Authoritarian parents:
-highly demanding and directive, not responsive
-expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation
-expect their children to accept their judgments, values, and
goals without questioning

36. Parenting style
Characteristics of the four parenting styles (II)
 Authoritative parents:
- demanding and responsive
- disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive
- are more open to give and take with their children and make
greater use of explanations (equally high in behavioral control
as authoritarian parents)
 Uninvolved /Neglectful parents:
- low in both responsiveness and demandingness
BUT: Parenting style is a typology, each parenting style is
more than and different from the sum of its parts (Baumrind,
1991).

37. Adjustment and Competence among
Adolescents from
Authoritative,Authoritarian, Indulgent,
and Neglectful Families
Steinberg, L. et al. (1987,1988)

38. Study of Steinberg, L. et al.
Purpose: to examine adolescents adjustment
and competence in families with different
parenting styles
1st part (1987); outcome: adolescents adjustment
varied as a function of their parenting style
2nd part (1988): follow-up to examine whether the
observed differences are maintained over time

39. Sample and procedure
 Ethnically and socioeconomically heterogeneous sample of
2300 (14-18 years old) students from 8 different highschools
 Students filled out questionnaires to provide information to
classify the parenting style (authoritative, authoritarian,
indulgent & neglectful) in their families.
 Students filled up questionnaires on psychosocial
developement, academic achivement, internalized distress,
and problem behavior.
 IV & DV:
- Independent variable: the different parenting styles
- Dependent variable: the change in the outcome of a certain
aspect in adjustment and competence.

40. 4 sets of variables
All these outcome variables were scaled on four-point
Likert scales, with 1as low (never, strongly disagree)
and 4 as high (frequently,strongly agree )
- Psychosocial Development
• Self-reliance scores
• Work orientation (the adolescent‘s pride in the
successful completion of tasks)
•Social competence
- Academic Achievement
• Academic competence
• Grade point average
• School orientation (feeling of attachment to school)

41. 4 different aspects
- Problem Behavior
• School misconduct (cheat ,copy homework...)
• Drug and alcohol use
• Delinquency (carry weapon, theft...)
- Internalized Distress
• Psychological symptoms
• Somatic symptoms

42. Group work
You will get a copy of a table of 1 aspect.
Please discuss the results within your group (10
minutes) and give a short presentation of it for the rest
of the class answering the following questions:
1.) How did t1 vary across parenting styles in terms of
these variables in each aspect?
2.) What are the outcomes of the follow-up for each
parenting style over time?
3.) What conclusion can you draw from the results in the
table (such as which parenting style is favourable for
adolescents‘ adjustment and school outcomes)?

43. Table 1 for group 1
PARENTING STYLE
Authoritative Authoritarian Indulgent Neglectful
1-Year 1-Year 1-Year 1-Year
T1 Change T1 Change T1 Change T1 Change
Psychosocial
development:
2.9
Self-reliance* 3.19 0.04 2.92 0 3.09 0.01 3 -0.06
Work 2.6
orientation*** 2.99 -0.01 2.77 -0.1 2.78 -0.05 1 -0.14
social 2.8
competence 3.13 0.05 2.8 0 3.11 -0.01 8 0
Note.--Different superscripts indicate that adjusted change scores are significantly different
at p< .10 or better (two-tailed). Minimum N=1,084.

44. Table 2 for group 2
Mean outcome scores at time 1 and adjusted change scores from
TABLE 2 time 1 to time 2 among adolescents from authoritative,
authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families
PARENTING STYLE
Authoritative Authoritarian Indulgent Neglectful
1-Year 1-Year 1-Year 1-Year
T1 Change T1 Change T1 Change T1 Change
Academic
achievement
Grade point
average 3.11 -0.01 2.86 -0.02 2.9 -0.05 2.61 -0.05
School
orientation** 3.02 -0.11 2.81 -0.09 2.78 -0.16 2.55 -0.21
Academic
competence* 3.1 0.18 2.75 0.11 2.92 0.21 2.68 0.06

45. Table 3 for group 3
Mean outcome scores at time 1 and adjusted change scores from
TABLE 3 time 1 to time 2 among adolescents from authoritative,
authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families
PARENTING STYLE
Authoritative Authoritarian Indulgent Neglectful
1-Year
1-Year 1-Year 1-Year
Chang
T1 Change T1 Change T1 Change T1
e
Internalized
distress:
Psychological 2.5
symptoms 2.39 0.08 7 0.21 2.43 0.07 2.53 0.11
Somatic 2.1
symptoms* 2.13 0.08 5 0.15 2.17 -0.08 2.17 0.04

46. Table 4 for group 4
Mean outcome scores at time 1 and adjusted change scores from time 1
TABLE 4 to time 2 among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian,
indulgent, and neglectful families
PARENTING STYLE
Authoritative Authoritarian Indulgent Neglectful
1-Year
1-Year 1-Year 1-Year
Cha
T1 Change T1 T1 Change T1 Change
nge
Problem
behaviors:
School 2.2
misconduct* 2.15 -0.11 5 -0.05 2.45 0.1 2.52 -0.02
Drug and 1.3
alcohol use+ 1.32 0.02 6 0.01 1.79 0.05 1.83 0.13
1.1
Delinquency*** 1.09 -0.02 5 -0.03 1.22 0.01 1.31 0.11

47. Summary
Differences in adjustment associated with variations in
parenting are either maintained or increase over time.
Benefits of authoritative parenting are largely in the
maintenance of previous levels of high adjustment
 Negative consequences of neglectful parenting continue to
accumulate
 Mixed outcomes for adolescents from authoritarian
/indulgent homes (for grade point average, indugent style is
better; but for problem behavior, authoritarian style is better
)

48. Ethnicity and parenting styles
The study of Steinberg, L. et al. investigated the effects
of different parenting styles at different ethnic groups.
 Outcome: patterns of change in adolescent adjustment
vary by ethnicity:
- asian-american report greater improvement in school
performance
- african-american report the most positive changes in self-
perceptions and a great decline in academic performance
- Hispanic-american report a great decline in academic
performance
- European-american report the greatest increases in drug and
alcohol use

49. Ethnicity
Several of the effects of parenting style appear to be
moderated by adolescents ethnicity:
• Authoritative parenting and psychosocial / academic
competence is strongest among european-americans,
• Negative consequences of parental authoritarianism is
not as severe among minority youth as among
european-americans (meaning of authoritarian is
moderated by the cultural context)
But: parental aloofness and disciplinary laxity appears
universally harmful to adolescents across all ethnic
groups

50. Critics on the study of
Steinberg, L. et al.
 All of the data derive from youngsters self-reports
(subjective experience)
 Focus on the extreme quadrants in the sample limits the
external validity
  further longitudinal research will help to provide a
clearer picture of the effects

51. Open discussion
 How to identify the threshold or cutoff between a healthy
and unhealthy level of parenting involvement?
 Which parenting style is the best?
 What role culture plays in the relationship between
parenting style and children’s well-being?