PARENTING STYLES AND ADOLESCENTS'SELF-ESTEEM IN BRAZIL 1 (original) (raw)

Testing the alleged superiority of the indulgent parenting style among Spanish adolescents

Background: While international studies have reported the superiority of the authoritative style (which combines parental involvement with demandingness), some studies in Spain and in other countries have found that the indulgent style (involvement without demandingness) might be just as good or even better. This study aims to discern whether the differences are cultural or methodological. Method: 306 adolescents from high schools in Madrid and Valencia (Spain) answered a questionnaire that included two parenting style instruments (SOC-30 and PSI), together with a self-esteem scale (AF5) and a question on academic performance. Results: Concordance between the two instruments assessing parenting styles was poor. When associating parenting styles (according to the SOC- 30) with outcomes (self-esteem and academic achievement), results were similar to previous studies in Spain. But if we use the PSI, results were similar to studies in Anglophone countries: the authoritative style achieved the best outcomes. Conclusions: The discrepancies found between studies carried out in Spain and in Anglophone countries do not seem to be due to differences between cultures, but to methodological differences (i.e., differences between the instruments used). If we use the same instruments that were used in Anglophone countries, the most effective parenting style is still the authoritative.

Paz, T. & Pires, M. (2015). Parenting styles perceived by teenagers and school achievement. Abstract Book of the 17th European Conference on Developmental Psychology. 8-12, September 8-12, 2015, Braga, Portugal, 427.

Parenting styles (PS) are parents’ attitudes towards their children’s overall development and education. By establishing the family’s environment and parents’ behaviours, PS have been the focus of developmental psychology and family studies, namely in relation to child outcomes. This cross-sectional study analyses the impact of perceived PS by adolescents regarding their school achievement. 110 boys and 118 girls in years 5-9 of schooling (M= 12.60, SD= 1.82) from a state school in Lisbon answered a demographic form and the Parental Authority Questionnaire for both parents. Their grades and the number of retentions were analysed. Results show that authoritative parenting correlates to higher grades and better school achievement. Permissive and authoritarian styles correlate to worse school results (grades and number of years held back). Although PS may vary according to cultural contexts, these results are in line with previous international research findings that show that parents’ authoritativeness is associated with better children outcomes and school achievement. Age and school level have a significant effect on PS. Older and more educated parents are perceived as less permissive and authoritarian. No level of agreement between the PS of mother/father-teenager was found, suggesting that the parents perceive themselves differently than their children. The results contribute to parenting styles’ knowledge within the Portuguese cultural context. They are also useful for organizing future, evidence-based interventions regarding parenting programmes and school underachievement and dropout preventing programmes.

What is best for your children? Authoritative vs. indulgent parenting styles

A growing body of research suggests that the authoritative style of parenting is not always necessarily associated with optimum psychological and social outcomes among adolescents. This paper analyzed the relationships between parenting styles and adolescents' psychological adjustment using a two-dimension four-typology model of parenting styles, with the aim to determine which style of parenting Authoritative vs. indulgent was associated with optimum psychological adjustment outcomes among Spanish adolescents. Parenting styles were measured with the Parental Acceptance-Rejection/Control Questionnaire (Rohner, 1990). The outcome measures were six indicators of psychological adjustment measured with the Personality Assessment Questionnaire (Rohner, 1990). Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVAs) were conducted with a sample of 489 Spanish children. Results suggest that adolescents of indulgent families do perform equal or even better in measures of psychological adjustment than adolescents from authoritative households. Authoritarian and neglectful parenting was associated, in general, with the minimum adjustment of adolescents.

Parenting Styles and Parenting Practices: Analyzing Current Relationships in the Spanish Context

2015

This chapter analyzes current evidence between parenting styles and parenting practices for the Spanish context. As opposed to traditional results obtained in Anglo-Saxon contexts with European-American samples, evidence from emergent research from Spain (a South European country) shows that adolescents from indulgent families (characterized by warmth but not strictness) are strongly related to the psychological autonomy granting parenting practice. Interestingly, psychological autonomy granting is positively related to warmth, but negatively related to strictness, just in the opposite end of the rejection and psychological control, that are both strong related to the authoritarian parenting style (characterized by strictness but not warmth). However, in line with