Ten Year Follow-up Study on Outcomes of Authoritative Parenting

Effects of Preschool Parents’ Power Assertive Patterns and Practices on Adolescent Development

Diana Baumrind, Robert E. Larzelere, and Elizabeth B. Owens

PARENTING: SCIENCE AND PRACTICE, 10: 157–201, 2010

Design. Participants were 87 families initially studied when children were preschool students, with outcomes assessed during early adolescence. Families were drawn from Baumrind’s Family Socialization and Developmental Competence longitudinal program of research.

Results. Adolescents whose parents were classified as directive, democratic, or authoritative (grouped as balanced-committed) when these adolescents were preschool students were competent and well-adjusted relative to adolescents whose parents were classified as authoritarian, permissive, or disengaged (grouped as imbalanced-uncommitted).

Adolescents from authoritarian families were notably incompetent and maladjusted. Variable-centered analyses indicated verbal hostility and psychological control were the most detrimental of the authoritarian-distinctive coercive power-assertive practices. Severe physical punishment and arbitrary discipline were also authoritarian-distinctive and detrimental. Normative physical punishment and confrontive discipline were neither. Confrontive discipline and maturity demands contributed to authoritative parenting’s effectiveness, whereas normative physical punishment was neutral in its effects.

Conclusions. The findings extend the consistently negative outcomes of authoritarian parenting and positive outcomes of authoritative and authoritative-like parenting to 10-year outcomes that control for initial child differences. Differential outcomes can be partially attributed to the coercive practices of authoritarian parents versus the confrontive practices of authoritative parents.