Parent–Child Attunement Moderates the Prospective Link between Parental Overcontrol and Adolescent Adjustment

• Author: Kelly F. Miller,Gayla Margolin,Jessica L. Borelli
• Date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12330
• Published date: 01 September 2018

Parent–Child Attunement Moderates the

Prospective Link between Parental Overcontrol and

Adolescent Adjustment

KELLY F. MILLER*

JESSICA L. BORELLI

†

GAYLA MARGOLIN*

Parental overcontrol (OC), behavior that intrusively or dominantly restricts child auton-

omy, has been identified as a transdiagnostic risk factor for youth. However, it is as yet

unknown whether the association between parental OC and child maladjustme nt remains

even when OC is exerted infrequently or by attuned parents. Rather, the selective use of OC

might steer children away from danger. Taking a developmental psychopathology

approach, this study focuses on the larger parent–child relationship context, testing

whether either the dose at which parents demonstrate OC or the degree to which children

perceive their parents as attuned determines whether OC is risky or protective for adoles-

cents’ adjustment. Among a community sample of 114 families of children followed from

the ages of 12–18, we examine whether OC, behaviorally coded from triadic mother–father–

child discussions in middle childhood, is associated with later risky behav ior and anxiety

symptoms in adolescence. Overcontrol exerted by either mothers or fathers had a curvilin-

ear effect on adolescent risky behaviors, and this effect was moderated by children’s per-

ceived attunement. Although OC generally was associated with increased risky behaviors,

low doses of OC or OC exerted by highly attuned parents protected against engagement in

risky behaviors. No main effect of OC was observed on adolescent anxiety; however, moth-

ers’ OC interacted with perceived parental attunement, such that OC exerted by less

attuned parents predicted greater anxiety. Results underscore that the effect of parenting

behaviors depends on the larger parent–child relationship context.

Keywords: Risky Behavior; Anxiety; Overcontrol; Adolescence; Parent–Child

Relationships

Fam Proc 57:679–693, 2018

Despite efforts to link specific parenting practices to the development of discrete child

outcomes, the same overt parenting behavior is often associated with both detrimen-

tal and beneficial sequelae. This problem of multifinality is exemplified in the literature

*University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.

†

University of California, Irvine, CA.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kelly F. Miller, University of Southern

California, 3620 S. McClintock Ave., 90089-0001 Los Angeles, CA. E-mail: kfmiller@usc.edu.

Funding for this study was provided, in part, by NIH NICHD R01 HD046807 awarded to the third

author and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship DGE-0937362 awarded to the first author. The authors

would like to thank the research participants and USC Family Studies Project colleagues, particularly

Sara Bethel, Mary Hakimeh, Natasha Philips, and Stephanie Sorady. Preliminary data from this study

were presented at the 2015 Society for Research on Child Development Bienniel Meeting and the 2015

Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Convention.

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Family Process, Vol. 57, No. 3, 2018 ©2017 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12330