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The Relationship Between Parenting Style and Children's Adjustment: The Parents' Perspective

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Abstract

We examined the relationship between authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles and socio-emotional adjustment in elementary school children as reported from the parents' perspective. Mothers of first through fifth graders provided information about parenting style as well as children's competencies and problem behaviors. Teachers provided ratings of children's adjustment for a subset of the participants. Results indicated that authoritative parenting was associated negatively with parent- and teacher-rated maladaptive behavior, and positively with indicators of healthy adjustment. Correlations between authoritarian parenting and adjustment were either small or non-significant. Regression analyses indicated that authoritative parenting was more predictive of children's competence than maladaptation (22% versus 10% of variance). The effects of parenting style on adjustment were not moderated by demographic variables, such as the child's gender, grade level, ethnicity, and family income.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY

    Dagmar Kaufmann (Graduate Student)

  2. Center for Community Study, 575 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY, 14620

    Dagmar Kaufmann (Graduate Student)

  3. Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

    Ellis Gesten (Professor)

  4. Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

    Raymond C. Santa Lucia (Graduate Student)

  5. Pinellas County Schools, Largo, FL

    Octavio Salcedo (Omnibus Project Manager)

  6. College of Education, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

    Gianna Rendina-Gobioff (Graduate Student)

  7. Pasco County School District, Lan O'Lakes, FL

    Ray Gadd (Supervisor of Student Services)

Authors
  1. Dagmar Kaufmann
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  2. Ellis Gesten
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  3. Raymond C. Santa Lucia
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  4. Octavio Salcedo
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  5. Gianna Rendina-Gobioff
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  6. Ray Gadd
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Kaufmann, D., Gesten, E., Lucia, R.C.S. et al. The Relationship Between Parenting Style and Children's Adjustment: The Parents' Perspective. Journal of Child and Family Studies 9, 231–245 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009475122883

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009475122883

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