Parenting Styles and Children’s Delinquency Reconsidered: An Empirical Assessment

• Author: Bora Lee,Joseph Cochran,Jurg Gerber
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jfcj.12164

Parenting Styles and Children’s Delinquency

Reconsidered: An Empirical Assessment

By Bora Lee, Jurg Gerber, and Joseph Cochran

ABSTRACT

For decades, criminological theories have emphasized the importance of strong

parent-child relationships in preventing children’s delinquent behaviors (e.g., Got-

tfredson & Hirschi, 1990). In particular, Thornberry’s (1996) interactional theory

has catalyzed studies of the critical importance of reciprocal relationships between

parents and children. However, though previous studies have examined reciprocal

relationships, they typically do not assess changes in those relationships over time

(Wiloughby & Hamza, 2011). The purpose of this study is to evaluate how reciprocal

relationships vary among parenting styles and how this variance accounts for chil-

dren’s delinquency. In particular, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey

of Youth 1997 Cohort study, the present study examines how the authoritative par-

enting style and different parent’s and child’s sexes affect the reciprocal parent-child

relationship. It discovers a significant correlation between authoritative parenting

styles and a reduction in child delinquency and observes how a parent’s sex influences

this dynamic.

Key words: parenting style, delinquent behavior, reciprocal relationship, sex difference.

Bora Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the College at Brockport,

State University of New York. Her recent research focuses on adolescent victimization, self-control and

parent-child relationship.

Jurg Gerber is a Professor of Criminal Justice and Director of International Initiatives in the College

of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University. For the last fifteen years he has also served as Professeur

Invite´at the University of Lausanne (Lausanne, Switzerland) and he spent academic year 2000/01 as a Ful-

bright Scholar at Kaliningrad State University, in Kaliningrad, Russia. His research interests include white-

collar crime, criminology, drug control policy, and international criminal justice issues. He has co-edited

two books on drug policy, one on white-collar crime, and he has published extensively in all of the above

areas. Address: College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas 77341.

E-mail: gerber@shsu.edu.

Joseph Cochran is a lecturer in the Department of Criminal Justice at the College at State University

of New York. His research interests include death penalty, education policy, gang participation, justice

ethics, and violent crimes. Address: Department of Criminal Justice, SUNY Brockport, 350 New Campus

Dr., Brockport, NY 14420. E-mail: jocochran@brockport.edu

Juvenile and Family Court Journal 71, No. 2

©2020 National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

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INTRODUCTION

According to criminological theories, parenting strongly influences the future

behavior of children (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; Hirschi, 1969). Subsequent studies

have supported these theories and shown that the quality of parenting can exert a power-

ful influence on children’s behavior and on the trajectory of their lives (Gorman-Smith,

Tolan, & Henry, 2000; Hoeve, Dubas, Gerris, Van der Laan, & Smeenk, 2011; Trinkner,

Cohn, Rebellon, & Van Gundy, 2011). Based on these studies, examining the behavior

of a child’s parents offers a possible method for plausibly predicting the child’s future

behavior. Additionally, other studies have shown that a child’s delinquent behavior

decreases the levels of parental monitoring, parental involvement, and support they

receive from their parents, suggesting a reverse causality: that after children engage in

delinquent behavior, they lose the positive attention of their parents as their parents give

up on encouraging them to improve this behavior (Coley & Medeiros, 2007; Keijsers,

Frijns, Branje, & Meeus, 2009; Laird, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2003). This body of schol-

arship argues that there is a reciprocal relationship between parenting and children’s

behavior. Interactional theory (Thornberry, 1996) has offered similar conceptions of the

reciprocal relationship, such as the claim that weak parent-child bonds increase the like-

lihood of children’s delinquent behaviors, and that these delinquent behaviors in turn

increase the likelihood of weaker attachment of children to their parents (Thornberry,

2003). Strikingly, few studies in any ideological camp have examined the hypothetical

reciprocal relationship between parenting and children’s behavior (i.e., delinquent and

criminal behavior) with longitudinal data (Gault-Sherman, 2012; Williams & Steinberg,

2011; Willoughby & Hamza, 2011).

Earlier studies have also identified sex-based differences in reciprocal parent-child

relationships. For instance, the sexes of children and their parents can affect levels of ten-

sion and closeness, types of parental involvement, and levels of parental knowledge (Col-

lins & Russell, 1991; Crouter, Bumpus, Davis, & McHale, 2005; Stattin & Kerr, 2000).

Further, Hoeve et al.’s meta-analysis (2009) identified a significant association between

the parenting of mothers and delinquency of daughters and between the parenting of

fathers and delinquency of sons. This difference potentially derives from the different

amounts of time that mothers and fathers contribute to child-rearing as well as chil-

dren’s tendency to model the behaviors of the parent who shares their sex (Bronte-Tin-

kew, Moore, & Carrano, 2006; Keijsers, Branje, VanderValk, & Meeus, 2010). These

previous studies offer a good empirical foundation for our assumption that the associa-

tion between parenting styles and child delinquency also depends on the respective sexes

of the parent(s) and child(ren).

Building on several prior parenting evaluations (Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Hoeve

et al., 2007), the present study also analyzes parenting styles rather than specific parent-

ing skills. Parenting styles capture several qualities of parents’ control of and responses

to their children, offering a more data-rich measurement than a single parenting skill.

This study employs the four parenting styles described by Baumrind (1971, 1996):

authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglectful. Authoritarian parents evaluate

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