Maternal and paternal parenting styles: unique and combined links to adolescent and early adult delinquency.

The present study examines the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between fathers' and mothers' parenting styles and male and female delinquency using a sample of 330 Dutch families with a mid or late adolescent son or daughter (ages 14-22), followed across two measurement waves with a 5-year interval. Parenting styles of fathers and mothers were linked to delinquency. A significant parenting style by sex interaction was found: neglectful parenting was related to higher levels of delinquency in males and permissive parenting was linked to delinquency in females. A long term relationship was found between fathers' neglectful parenting style and delinquency in males. Furthermore, results revealed that levels of delinquency were the lowest in families with at least one authoritative parent and highest in families with two neglectful parents, indicating that the level of delinquency was dependent on the combination of mother's and father's parenting styles.

The relationship between parenting and delinquency: a meta-analysis.

This meta-analysis of 161 published and unpublished manuscripts was conducted to determine whether the association between parenting and delinquency exists and what the magnitude of this linkage is. The strongest links were found for parental monitoring, psychological control, and negative aspects of support such as rejection and hostility, accounting for up to 11% of the variance in delinquency. Several effect sizes were moderated by parent and child gender, child age, informant on parenting, and delinquency type, indicating that some parenting behaviors are more important for particular contexts or subsamples. Although both dimensions of warmth and support seem to be important, surprisingly very few studies focused on parenting styles. Furthermore, fewer than 20% of the studies focused on parenting behavior of fathers, despite the fact that the effect of poor support by fathers was larger than poor maternal support, particularly for sons. Implications for theory and parenting are discussed.