The Relationship Between Parenting and Delinquency: A Meta-analysis

“These negative child-parent transactions increase the risk of setting a child off on a delinquent path that starts in the early teens, entails many delinquent acts and persists far into adulthood (Moffitt 1993; Patterson and Yoerger 2002).”

“Parenting styles are configurations of attitudes and behaviors of parents towards their child and create a context or a climate for the parent’s behavior and is displayed across many different situations (Darling and Steinberg 1993).”

“…whom – on the one hand – more positive parenting relates to lower levels of externalizing behavior problems (Amato & Rivera, 1999; Barnes & Farell, 1992; Hoeve et al., 2009) and – on the other hand – physical punishment relates to more deviant behavior on the part of the child (e.g., Straus &…”

“Research has also identified family dysfunction as an antecedent of antisocial and violent behaviors (see Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Behav. meta-analysis [Hoeve et al., 2009] showed parental support to be negatively related to delinquent behavior across 72 studies and a total of 49.960 (mainly adolescent) subjects.”

“For example, a large body of research provides support for the contention that parental socialization has a significant influence on adolescent delinquency (Hoeve et al. 2009) and self-control (Cullen et al.”

“The role of parents and educators in delinquency prevention remains critical (Harris-McKoy & Cui, 2013; Hoeve et al., 2009; Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005).”

“Poor monitoring has been associated with general delinquent activity in a variety of research (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009); the current findings suggest it might play a similar role in sex offenses committed against peers/adults.”

“First, poor parenting skills are strongly predictive of youth disruptive behaviour.(8,9) Second, because the public health and financial burden of child disruptive behaviour and its later consequences are very high, it provides an excellent opportunity for early preventative intervention.”

“Moreover, as several studies have highlighted, the important contribution of the family to the development of a risky lifestyle in adolescence and to adolescents’ deviant peer affiliation (see Boyer 2006 for a review and Hoeve et al. 2009 for a meta-analysis on the relationship between parenting and delinquency), pare…”

“These parenting dimensions were selected because they represent parenting practices that have been consistently linked with child functioning (Hoeve et al., 2009; McLeod et al., 2007).”

“There is consistent evidence that this association may be mediated, in part, by disruptions in the mother–child relationship (Harold et al., 2010, 2012; Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“There is considerable evidence indicating that various aspects of family dysfunction play important roles in the emergence of adolescent delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009; Hoeve et al., 2012).”

“…of encouragement in the face of failures) are aversive conditions consistently related to the development of adolescent delinquent behavior (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009; Steinberg, Lamborn, Darling, Mounts, & Dornbusch, 1994); and that specifically adolescents carrying a specific DRD4 or DRD2…”

“1 There is also some evidence that the effects of parenting practices vary by age, whereby parental controls are more effective for younger children versus adolescents (Hoeve et al. 2009; Jang and Krohn 1995; Thornberry et al. 1991).”

“The second dimension is parental demandingness, such as behavioral and psychological control, representing the control factors to adolescents’ development [30].”

“, parents’ attempts to control adolescents’ thoughts and feelings) and maladjustment [31,32].”

“, the Anglo-Saxon context) [73,74], our results are consistent with a growing line of research that questions whether the authoritative parenting style is always associated with positive results in all cultures [28].”

“The association between family processes and involvement in crime is well established, indicating that poor relations with parents is related to more adolescent crime (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009; Oleson & Costello, 2019; Stattin & Kerr, 2000).”

“For instance, it has been shown that dysfunctional parenting practices result in more behavioral and emotional problems in children and adolescents (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009; Pinquart, 2017).”

“Although there is some evidence of differential parenting effects on conduct problems by parent and child gender (Hoeve et al. 2009), no studies could be found that addressed gendered parent-child bidirectional effects on conduct problems in the context of deviant peer influences.”

“Negative family interactions are major risk factors for the development of ASB and delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009; Murray & Farrington, 2010) and are potentially modifiable.”

“, 2005; Trinkner, 2012) and parents (Darling et al., 2007, 2008; Hoeve et al., 2009; Trinkner et al., 2012) influence whether individuals engage in RVB, future legal socialization researchers should continue to explore both the ways in which legitimacy perceptions influence RVB, as well as what creates these perceptio…”

“In line with this, Hoeve et al. (2009) found, in accordance with the finding of Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber (1986), that parental rejection and poor supervision were among the best predictors of delinquency.”

“It should be noted that effect sizes are modest in HICs, around r = 0.2 (Hoeve et al. 2009), as well as in our review.”

“, 2017), delinquency and antisocial behaviors such as deliberately damaging property carrying a weapon, fighting (Hoeve et al., 2009; Klevens & Hall, 2014), and risky sexual behaviors (Cottrell et al.”

“…bonds between adults and adolescents are strong, it is more likely that adults and youth will communicate well, or that adolescents will listen to and internalize adult instructions about normative expectations and behaviors (Akers, 1998; Hoeve et al., 2009; SokolKatz, Dunham, & Zimmerman, 1997).”

“For example, reduced parental warmth and sensitivity are associated with both increased EXT (Hoeve et al., 2009) and INT (McLeod et al.”

“The direct protective effect of parenting behavior on adolescent delinquency is a well-established and classic finding in both criminology and developmental psychology (see, for a meta analytical overview, Hoeve et al. 2009).”

“Regarding psychological control – the only parental dimension positively associated with antisocial behavior in children – previous meta-analysis studies have emphasized that this variable is a significant predictor of delinquency, even greater than behavioral control (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Several studies have found empirical support for these theoretical links (Dishion, 1990; Dishion, Patterson, Stoolmiller, & Skinner, 1991; Hoeve et al., 2009; Patterson, Dishion, & Bank, 1984; Rodgers-Farmer, 2000; Véronneau & Dishion, 2010; Wang et al., 2011).”

“For example, inadequate parenting, history of maltreatment and trauma, socio-emotional difficulties, poor adjustment in school, and antisocial behaviors have been associated with mental health and/or substance abuse problems and delinquency (Leve et al. 2012; Miller et al. 2011; Ford et al. 2010; Hoeve et al. 2009; Ci…”

“A meta-analysis of 161 studies found that parental monitoring, psychological control, rejection, and hostility accounted for 11% of the variance in delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“…previous correlational studies (Aunola & Nurmi, 2005; Bailey, Hill, Oesterle, & Hawkins, 2009; Barber, Olsen, & Shagle, 1994), meta-analyses (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009), prospective longitudinal studies (e.g., Galambos et al., 2003; Miner & ClarkeStewart, 2008; Wiggins, Mitchell, Hyde, & Monk,…”

“Family bonding prevents delinquency by providing a supportive environment where adolescents spend time with family members more than with peers (Hoeve et al., 2009; Kierkus and Baer, 2002).”

“As we know from previous research, there exist a large number of risk and protective factors for delinquency, with the quality of a child’s family life ranking among the most powerful factors (Farrington et al., 2017; Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Delinquency is an indicator of behavioral maladjustment that has been consistently predicted by parental support and monitoring (Hoeve et al. 2009), which is in accordance with the family stress model.”

“Parenting dimensions of monitoring, psychological control, and negative aspects of support (neglect, hostility and rejection) predict delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“This study also explored whether the moderation effects found for general delinquency applied differently to theft and violence, because previous studies found different pre- dictors of both types of delinquency (Barker et al., 2007, 2011; Hoeve et al., 2009; Loeber et al., 2012).”

“…greater positive parenting is associated with fewer child behavior problems in both clinical and community samples and across all child ages (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009; McKee, Colletti, Rakow, Jones, & Forehand, 2008), and findings from related research areas such as children’s moral development…”

“Studies examining multiple parenting behaviours simultaneously show strongest effects for psychological control (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009; Janssens et al., 2015).”

“Family-level risk factors such as inter-parental violence, inconsistent parenting and parental neglect are important to understanding the development of conduct disorder (CD, e.g., Rutter et al. 1998; Farrington and Loeber 2000; Johnson et al. 2004; Hoeve et al. 2009; Jaffee et al. 2009).”

“Whereas some studies have failed to find a significant correlation, others studies showed a significant increased vulnerability to risky behaviors when children reported pressuring and intrusive parenting (Hoeve et al., 2009; Simons, Whitbeck, Beaman, & Conger, 1994; Stone et al., 2012).”

“Because the same-sex intergenerational bond is reportedly closer than the cross-sex parent–child bond (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009), the relationship between parent–child relationships and leaving/returning home might be stronger for same sex parent–child relationships than cross-sex relationships.”

“…use of corporal punishment, may also contribute to the development of ADHD (Ellis & Nigg, 2009), which further reflects the broader importance of parenting behavior to children’s social-emotional, cognitive, and behavioral development (Amato & Fowler, 2002; Baumrind, 1991; Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“…research continues to show that ineffective parenting including the lack of effective monitoring, supervision, and discipline as well as parental rejection place youth at risk for delinquency (for a recent meta-analysis of 161 studies on parenting and delinquency research, see Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Furthermore, the support given/offered as part of the positive reinforcement practice may be another important ingredient for behavior modification (Hoeve et al., 2009; Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005), because their reward circuitry ismuchmore sensitive to such social signals…”

“…studies examining parenting behavior as a potential contributor to EXT problems in offspring have typically identified parenting behavior characterized as nonresponsive or low in warmth as a predictor of subsequent EXT problems across development in both males and females (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Numerous studies on Western adolescents support this view, and indicate that this parenting practice is associated with more externalizing and internalizing behavior problems of adolescents (Albrecht et al. 2007; Barber et al. 1994; Hoeve et al. 2009; McLeod et al. 2007).”

“such as inconsistent or low levels of parental monitoring and association with deviant peers have emerged as promising for further investigation for these youths as well as youths living in other situations (Brody et al., 2006; Hoeve et al., 2009; Murphy, Brecht, Huang, & Herbeck, 2012; O'Donnell, Richards, Pearce, &…”

“…in parenting practices, such as supervision, monitoring, discipline, encouragement, and support, which are associated with decreases in depressive symptoms, aggression, and delinquency among youth (Amato & Gilbreth, 1999; Hoeve et al., 2009; Plunkett, Henry, Robinson, Behnke, & Falcon, 2007).”

“Parental involvement, rejection, and supervision have been confirmed as the more relevant parental practices in meta-analyses (Hoeve et al., 2009; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986).”

“Public Policy Implications Parenting quality greatly affects societal well-being; the single most important determinant of juvenile delinquency is ineffective parenting (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Another study was conducted to find out the relationship between parenting and delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“…found in research conducted in South Africa (Roman, 2014; Roman et al., 2015), a comparative study of parenting in the USA and Australia (Russell, Hart, Page 4 of 12 Robinson, & Olsen, 2003) and a meta-analysis in which gender affected the parenting approach of the parents (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“In father-child relationships where the amount of hostility is high and warmth is low, delinquent behavior is more prevalent (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“…in literature reviews (e.g., Brauer & De Coster, 2015; Chen, Drabick, & Burgers, 2015; Newman, Harrison, Dashiff, & Davies, 2008) and statistically confirmed in research and meta-analytic studies (e.g., Assink et al., 2015; Hoeve et al., 2009; Petersen, Bates, Dodge, Lansford, & Pettit, 2015).”

“…between other fathering constructs and children’s mental health problems have also found similar, small effects (sensitivity and externalizing problems, r=−00.08; sensitivity and internalizing problems, r=−0.02; attachment and delinquency r= 0.19; Hoeve et al., 2009; Rodrigues et al., 2021).”

“…has occupied a key risk factor role in the developmental course of child and adolescent oppositional and conduct problems (e.g., Simons-Morton, Chen, Hand, & Haynie, 2008), delinquency (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986), and substance use (e.g., Feldstein & Miller, 2006).”

“Youth exhibiting conduct problems and delinquent behavior are more likely to experience poor family functioning and worse interpersonal relationships with their parents (Hoeve et al., 2009), indicating that a family-focused preventive intervention may be especially fitting for these youth's needs.”

“Informatively, a large number of studies have assessed whether various dimensions of parenting, including attachment, monitoring, and discipline, are correlated with adolescent delinquency, with many finding significant associations (Hoeve et al., 2009; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986).”

“Adolescents who report being close to their parents are less likely to engage in risky or deviant behavior (Hoeve et al. 2009).”

“…also supported that gender moderated several significant effect sizes, since supportive parenting style of fathers was related to increased delinquency in boys but not girls; and supportive parenting style of mothers was related to bullying behavior by girls but not boys (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Various studies confirm the mechanism of assortative mating (e.g. Besjes and Van Gaalen 2008; Bronte-Tinkew et al. 2006; Hoeve et al. 2009; Junger et al. 2013; Nijhof et al. 2007).”

“contrast to a substantial body of research suggesting a strong predictive link between parenting practices (both positive and negative) and child conduct problems [6, 8, 9].”

“It therefore remains possible that maternal characteristics at least partially underpin variation in mind-mindedness.”