Running head: AUTHORITARIAN AND ADOLESCENCE

Authoritarian Parenting and the Effects During Adolescence

Karsyn Sewell
The University of Memphis

PERMISSIVE AND ADOLESCENCE

Our success over our lifetime is greatly affected by the way we have grown up. Parents
play an essential role in their childs life whether they know it or not, and there are different
styles of parenting. I believe it is very important to understand the consequences that go along
with being too strict while parenting. (Winsor, Murrel, and Magun- Jackson, 2015) says that
authoritarian parents set high standards for the child, but doesnt give any support to their child.
The following two studies show the different ways authoritarian parents are harming their
children and how it effects teenagers in high school that are trying to develop positive youth
development.
During the first experiment, Baurmind, Larzelere, and Owens investigated the effects of
parenting styles in preschool children that had great emotional intelligence and ability, and
compared it to coercive power-assertive parenting style that showed significantly negative longterm effects. (Baumrind, Larzelere, Owens, 2010) said that they characterize authoritarian
parents as significantly more controlling and directive than authoritative parents, and that is why
their effects are s different. (Baumrind, Larzelere, Owens, 2010) said authoritarian parents
differentiate from authoritative or directive parents in five ways: (1) unqualified power assertion,
(2) arbitrary discipline, (3) psychological control, (4) severe physical punishment, and (5) hostile
verbal criticism. (Baumrind, Larzelere, Owens, 2010) said the unqualified power assertion in
authoritarian parents would be to quickly give the child a positive thing in order to get quick
agreement of things from the child because they are at the bottom of the totem pole in the very
hierarchical family. The arbitrary discipline is random in the sense that there is no reason for
exactly why they are being so strictly controlled all of the time, and it is very detrimental to the
childs success. (Baumrind, Larzelere, Owens, 2010) said that psychological control is indirect,
hidden, invasive, and pointed at controlling the childs mind and personal identity. (Baumrind,

PERMISSIVE AND ADOLESCENCE

Larzelere, Owens 2010) said that there are definitely harmful effects of severe physical
punishment. (Winsor, Murrel, and Magun- Jackson, 2015 says that authoritarian parents use
expressive language, values obedience, and relies on corporal punishment for discipline.
In the first experiment, the authors studied families that had children in preschool and
learned that effects that it caused during the childrens high school years by using interviews and
observational behaviors. (Baumrind, Larzelere, Owens 2010) increased ecological validity by
relying on the behavior of the participants in several ordinary environments. (Baumrind,
Larzelere, Owens 2010) used information about parents and children that was gathered from
different contexts for adolescents separate from school, enhanced by observations in laboratory
situations, semi-structured interviews with others, and standardized and project-designed
psychological tests. (Baumrind, Larzelere, Owens 2010) prevented bias from shared source
variance, interviewers differed for the child and his or her parents, and differed across time
points for each participant. (Baumrind, Larzelere, Owens 2010) said that the teenagers from
authoritarian families were especially unskilled and confused. They also found that the most
detrimental of the authoritarian practices was the intimidation and psychological control.
(Winsor, Murrel, and Magun- Jackson, 2015) says that authoritarian parents do not reason with
the child and fully expect the child to accept what they say with no question, indicating the child
stays in the child role. Overall, the authors of this study believe a balance of standards, or rules,
and responsiveness, or sensitivity, which is similar to the findings of the second experiment.
In the second experiment, the authors believe that both parents and other important adults
have a strong impact in fostering the best youth development, and their results indicate so as
well. However, the authoritarian parenting style gave negative outcomes. (Bowers, Johnson,
Buckingham, Gasca, Warren, Lerner, and Lerner, 2014) measured maternal warmth, parental

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school involvement, and parental monitoring. The study along measures important non-parental
adult relationships and positive youth development, and the five Cs in positive youth
development: competence, confidence, character, connection, and caring. (Bowers, Johnson,
Buckingham, Gasca, Warren, Lerner, and Lerner, 2014) said there is little research on the effects
of multiple circumstances as guides for healthy and positive development in adolescence.
At the end of the second experiment, the findings showed how detrimental authoritarian
parenting styles were in the action of positive youth development. (Bowers, Johnson,
Buckingham, Gasca, Warren, Lerner, and Lerner, 2014) labeled authoritarian parenting in the 9th
grade as reasonable levels of involvement, low warmth levels, and high monitoring levels.
(Bowers, Johnson, Buckingham, Gasca, Warren, Lerner, and Lerner, 2014) said youth with
authoritarian parents were doing worse than other youth in grade 10. (Winsor, Murrel, and
Magun- Jackson, 2015) says that, even though authoritarian dont provide a lot of warmth, the
children feel loved and think their parents mean well. (Bowers, Johnson, Buckingham, Gasca,
Warren, Lerner, and Lerner, 2014) said parenting with authoritarian style may be beneficial for
minority and low-resourced families. (Winsor, Murrel, and Magun- Jackson, 2015) says that
authoritarian parents in low socioeconomic status context offer some advantages. Children in
poor neighborhoods may necessarily need the unbending structure and insensitive discipline to
become firm, or stable, in society, respect authority, and become dutiful. (Bowers, Johnson,
Buckingham, Gasca, Warren, Lerner, and Lerner, 2014) resulted that being involved with young
peoples academic and school life is only harmful to adolescent outcomes when that is a parents
only concern.
In conclusion, the two studies both confirm the belief that authoritarian parenting styles
do not provide children with the things that they need for positive youth development. (Winsor,

PERMISSIVE AND ADOLESCENCE

Murrel, and Magun- Jackson, 2015) says that authoritarian children are less likely to reach higher
stages of cognitive and moral development and become more anxious or withdrawn towards
others. In the first experiment, (Baumrind, Larzelere, Owens, 2010) furthered the steadily
destructive consequences of authoritarian parenting and constructive results of authoritative to
10-year conclusions that control for initial child differences. In the second experiment, (Bowers,
Johnson, Buckingham, Gasca, Warren, Lerner, and Lerner, 2014) also furthered that, although
the children of authoritarian said that they still felt loved by their parents, the children had more
negative results in competence, confidence, character, and connection. (Baumrind, Larzelere,
Owens, 2010) said that socialization of children to follow the normative values of conduct in
order to fit in adequately to society is essentially the parents responsibility. All of the
conclusions from each study lead to the belief that a balance of control and support towards the
child is the best way to create the most progressive development. Furthermore, the authoritarian
parenting style hinders the advance of the children by making them more apprehensive while
growing.

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References

Baumrind, D., Larzelere, R., & Owens, E. (2010). Effects of preschool parents' power assertive
patterns and practices on adolescent development. Parenting: Science & practice, 10(3),
157-201 45p. doi:10.1080/15295190903290790
Bowers, E., Johnson, S., Buckingham, M., Gasca, S., Warren, D., Lerner, J., & Lerner, R. (2014).
Important non-parental adults and positive youth development across mid- to lateadolescence: The moderating effect of parenting profiles. Journal of Youth &
Adolescence, 43(6), 897-918 22p. doi:10.1007/s10964-014-0095-x
Winsor, D., Murrell, V., Magun-Jackson, S. (2015). Lifespan development: An educational
psychology perspective. Boston, MA: Pearson