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).”

“With regard to the influence of parental socialization on delinquent and criminal behavior, a large body of research similarly provides evidence in support of this link (for meta-analytic reviews, see Hoeve et al., 2009; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986).”

“For example, in a meta-analysis of 161 empirical studies, Hoeve et al. (2009) found that authoritative parenting was negatively related to delinquency.”

“’s [4] meta-analysis, indicators of warm and supportive parent-adolescent relationships are negatively related to adolescent antisocial behaviors, whereas conflicting, rejecting, and overcontrolling parental relationships are positively related to them.”

“Parenting practices are frequently linked to youth behaviors, such as delinquency, social skills, and school performance, across all periods of child and adolescent development (Barry, Lochman, Fite, Wells, & Colder, 2012; Hoeve et al., 2009; Tyler, Johnson, & Brownridge, 2008).”

“Poor parental monitoring is one of the strongest predictors that is routinely and consistently related to young people ’ s offending (e.g., Crouter and Head 2002; Farrington 2010; Hoeve et al. 2009; Smith and Stern 1997).”

“…out” against such parenting behaviors and seek out more independence and freedom as they transition into emerging adulthood (e.g., picking a college that is far from home, moving out at an early age, increasing dependency on friends and romantic partners; Sherrod et al., 1993; Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“In fact, meta-analyses report a moderate effect size between parents’ psychological control and delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009), and a small effect size between parents’ psychological control and peer relational aggression (Kuppens, Laurent, Heyvaert, & Onghena, 2012).”

“, communication, warmth, and attachment) (Derzon 2010; Hoeve et al. 2009; Lipsey and Derzon 1998).”

“These results are consistent with earlier studies that reported a relationship between parenting style and risk-taking behavior (Coley, Carrano, & Lewin-Bizan, 2011; Davids, Roman, & Leach, 2016; Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Conversely, harsh inconsistent parenting is predictive of poor child outcomes: child abuse and neglect, delinquency, drug use, school failure, poor health and mental health, and partner violence [10].”

“Chronic parental neglect is the most important predictor of juvenile delinquency (Cicchetti and Cohen, 2006; Hoeve et al., 2009; Kerig and Becker, 2015).”

“A better understanding of these mechanisms would inform the development of theory-driven prevention and intervention strategies to reduce adolescents’ delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“In a meta-analysis study, Hoeve et al. (2009) reported that the effect of poor support by fathers was larger than poor maternal support and Lundahl et al. (2008) detected that children/adolescents benefited more if fathers attended a parent training compared to programs that focused on mothers only…”

“A combined strict, yet permissive, parenting style demonstrates caring for their children and has been correlated with warmth and positive mental health in children (Hoeve et al., 2009; Mason, Walker-Barnes, Tu, Simons, Martinez-Arrue, 2004).”

“Indeed, parents, and the way they educate their children, can have a substantial influence on the way children behave across a wide range of behavioral contexts (Maccoby, 2014), from delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009) to academic performance (Fan & Chen, 2001).”

“In regard to some parent behaviors, the adolescents’ perception of the behavior is the stronger predictor of adolescent behavior (Hoeve et al., 2009; Pinquart, 2017).”

“For instance, although family factors are also predictive of delinquency, their effect sizes are smaller for adolescents than children (Hoeve et al., 2009), whereas peer factors become especially important (Lipsey & Derzon, 1998).”

“This observation is supportive of a view that the effect of negative parenting style, which is associated with childhood abused experience [25–27], is stronger in father–son pairs than in other parent–child pairs, as found in previous empirical studies on parenting style [23, 28].”

“Research conducted since the Hoeve et al. (2009) meta-analysis, however, suggests that parental social support may present certain advantages over parental control when it comes to reducing future delinquent behavior via peer deviance.”

“Children are more likely to indicate negative characteristics of their family, whereas parents tend to overestimate positive features of their rearing behavior (Hoeve et al., 2009; Noller & Callan, 1988).”

“[13] found that psychological control was at least as important as behavioral control in predicting increased levels of delinquent behaviors.”

“For instance, Hoeve et al. (2009) found stronger links between poor support and delinquency in same-sex parent–child pairs in their meta-analysis, and that poor support by fathers was more strongly related to delinquency than poor maternal support.”

“In particular, positive outcomes are achieved when the parents remain cognizant of their child’s activities, monitor their child’s behavior, and raise their children in a structured environment [16,24].”

“However, adolescents may respond differently to parenting styles and their perception of parenting efforts has been shown to moderate the overall effects on health behaviors (Jackson, 2002; Tan & Tong, 2010).”

“Generally speaking, there is a strong tradition within this body of research of studying family relationships separately from parenting practices (Hoeve et al. 2009; Kerr and Stattin 2000).”

“…parental warmth and supervision, may involve allowing a child to engage in frequent television viewing and physical discipline (Slack, Holl, McDaniel, Yoo, & Bolger, 2004), which are associated with childhood maltreatment including neglect (Slack et al., 2004) and delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“The meta-analysis conducted by Hoeve et al. (2009) also revealed that parental rejection and hostility were important predictors of future delinquent behavior.”

“Family management, or family monitoring, has been shown to be particularly associated with reduced substance use, including marijuana, among adolescents (Hoeve et al., 2009; Lac & Crano, 2009; Shillington et al., 2005; Steinberg et al., 1994).”

“Furthermore, this factor has been related to a decrease in children externalizing and internalizing problems (Harper, 2010; Hoeve et al., 2009; Jia, Kotila, & Schoppe-Sullivan, 2012; Keizer, Lucassen, Jaddoe, & Tiemeier, 2014; Khaleque & Rohner, 2002b, 2012; McLeod, Weisz, & Wood, 2007; Shwalb et…”

“This finding supports past research that has found positive relations between parental monitoring and adolescent deviant and violent behaviors (Dishion & Patterson, 2006; Hoeve et al., 2009), and further extends this research by examining within-person associations.”

“A multi-informant approach offers insights into scientific phenomena and can contribute to confirming psychological theories in a way that a single-informant approach cannot.”

“With respect to how parenting dimensions are grouped, and whether mothers and fathers were studied, one recent meta-analysis of studies assessing parenting behavior and delinquency found that only a minority of 160 studies assessed both responsiveness and demandingness, with only 20% of these assessing parenting of bo…”

“Hoeve et al. (2009) failed to observe a moderating effect for offspring sex in their metaanalysis of parenting and delinquency but they did note that parental support and delinquency weremore strongly correlated in same sex pairs (fathers-sons, mothers-daughters) than in opposite sex pairs…”

“This is related to the lack of parental involvement in adolescents, low control, perceived violence adolescents, and inconsistent discipline [39],[40].”

“Accordingly, exposure to parental hostility and rejection has been linked to both adolescent aggression and rulebreaking behavior (Hoeve et al., 2009; Weymouth et al., 2016).”

“There is implicit evidence for active listening, however, in the important positive results for good parent–child communication (e.g., Mynttinen et al., 2017; Ryan et al., 2010) and child disclosure (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“It ’ s worth noting that while theories and some research fi ndings seem to con fi rm the roles of adolescence stages and gender in this context, there are also studies that reported inconsistent results (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009; Pinquart, 2017).”

“Among these covariates with youth behavior is parenting (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“…have been associated with a host of problem behaviors: increases in substance use (Van Ryzin, Fosco, & Dishion, 2012), early sexual activity (Wight, Williamson, & Henderson, 2006), aggression (Graber, Nichols, Lynne, Brooks-Gunn, & Botvin, 2006), and delinquency generally (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Although past work has indicated potential differences regarding the impact of maternal versus paternal involvement on child behavior (Hoeve et al., 2009; Winsler, Madigan, & Aquilino, 2005; Wood & Repetti, 2004), reports of maternal and paternal involvement were highly correlated in the current…”

“…strongly linked with externalizing problems in children and youth (Deater-Deckard & Dodge, 1997; Dishion, Patterson, Stoolmiller, & Skinner, 1991; Hoeve et al., 2009; Kerr, Lopez, Olson, & Sameroff, 2004; Patterson & Fisher, 2002), beginning in early childhood (Campbell, Pierce, Moore,…”

“© 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Carrobles, Munoz-Rivas, & Almendros, 2010; Hoeve et al., 2009) have reported a significant relationship between parental control and adolescents’ indulgences in delinquent activities.”

“Much research has focussed on the role of parenting behaviours and a meta-analysis of 161 papers found the parenting factors most strongly linked to children’s later delinquency were parental monitoring, psychological control, rejection and hostility [7].”

“In addition, the authors indicated that 67 % of children who experience high levels of negative parenting demonstrate high levels of antisocial behavior, compared to only 33 % of youth who experience low levels of parental negativity (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Time and again, factors such as poor parental monitoring and low parental warmth and responsiveness have been shown to predict delinquency involvement among adolescents (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“…and harsh discipline have been consistently found to relate to a wide range of outcomes including mental health, physical health, and competencies in childhood and adolescence (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009; Rohner & Britner, 2002), and there is support for these relations persisting into adulthood.”

“…indicate the relation of parental psychological control with youth problem behaviors (i.e., internalizing and externalizing behaviors) is in the small-to-medium range, positive, and statistically signi fi cant ( r = 0.21, Hoeve et al., 2009; r = 0.24, Pinquart, 2017; r = 0.22, Yan et al., 2020).”

“…although studies consistently find statistically significant associations between parenting and delinquency/antisocial behaviors, these effects tend to be relatively small in magnitude, accounting, on average, for only about 11% of the overall variance in the examined outcomes (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“…can hamper social interactions (Rapee & Spence, 2004; Steinberg & Monahan, 2007), including poorer relationships with both parents and peers (e.g., Hoeve et al., 2009; Giordano, Cernkovich, & Pugh, 1986; Kingery et al., 2010; Muris, Mee-sters, van Melick, & Zwambag, 2001), it is important to…”

“Few studies have failed to provide supportive evidence for the association between parental discipline practices and delinquency (Gershoff 2002; Hoeve et al. 2009).”

“Of those studies that focus on parenting styles, most have examined authoritative and authoritarian parenting only—far fewer have considered indulgent parenting, and neglectful parenting is rarely measured (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“Warmth within the parenting realm in general has been linked to adolescent development outcomes such as delinquency (Hoeve et al., 2009), depression and anxiety (Yap, Pilkington, Ryan, & Jorm, 2014), academic achievement (Pinquart, 2015), and externalizing behavior problems (Pinquart, 2017).”

“This interpretation is concordant with prior findings that parenting–delinquency association is stronger among younger adolescents [50,51].”

“The inconsistency regarding the effects of parental support might be due in part to the heterogeneity in the definition and, therefore, measure operationalization of the construct (e.g., support, warmth, acceptance, attachment) (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“As many of these variables are known risk factors for the development of mental health problems in young people (Fergusson, Horwood, & Lynskey, 1994; Hoeve et al., 2009), results may be confounded by the indirect influence that these factors have on the development of the problems for which help is being sought.”

“For example, parental monitoring and delinquency are negatively related to each other (Hoeve et al., 2009).”

“However, consistent with previous work (Hoeve et al. 2009), inkind support was not associated with delinquent behaviors, suggesting that parental time and engagement with children may be more salient for this outcome than material support.”

“…often generate a coercive cycle in which the parent and child escalate their negativity, reciprocally reinforcing the problematic behaviors of the other (Gershoff 2002,Hoeve et al. 2009,Moffitt 1993, Patterson & Fisher 2002, Patterson et al. 1992, Trentacosta et al. 2019, Waller et al. 2013).”

“Through a meta-analysis of 161 empirical studies, Machteld et al. (2009) found that ineffective parenting styles, especially the lack of parental monitoring and support, were positively related to delinquency.”

“5,28 A more recent meta-analysis by Hoeve et al. 64 also found that the strongest predictors of violence and delinquent behavior were parental monitoring, psychologic control, and negative aspects of control, such as rejection and hostility. p636) Although much of the research on parenting has not examined sex differe…”

“This module focused also on a better relationship (with fewer conflicts) between parent and juvenile, which has been shown to be associated with less risk for delinquent behavior in juveniles (Hair et al., 2005; Hoeve et al., 2009; Keijsers, Loeber, Branje, & Meeus, 2011).”

“In comparison, studies focused on the effects of parenting and, specifically, psychologically controlling parenting on young adults, are limited (Hoeve et al., 2009; Manzeske & Stright, 2009; Ryff & Seltzer, 1996; Schwartz et al., 2009; Stolz et al., 2005).”