Parenting Styles & Adolescent Substance Use

Written by: Alondra Alamillo

Jocelyn, a 12-year-old girl, has just begun her sixth-grade year and is thrilled to transition from elementary school to a middle school environment.. However, her parents are worried about the changes that are to follow as their daughter enters adolescence. Since Jocelyn’s parents strongly believe this is a time of rebellion and misconduct, they have set stricter rules and expectations to help adapt to the stereotypical behavior expected during adolescence. These include maintaining A’s in all of her classes and making her way back home immediately after school with no exceptions as to limit her opportunities to “act out.” She is expected to meet these demands no matter what, as her parents would not be accepting of anything less. Although Jocelyn believes these are beyond unreasonable and attempted to have a conversation with her parents, she is reminded that these are not up for debate and that she must never question what her parents ask of her. This embodies the authoritarian parenting style, which largely relies on heavy punishment-based disciplinary attitudes and demands, often leading adolescents to feel discouraged from having open communication with their parents about their own standards. The ways in which parents choose to respond to their adolescent’s behavior, is a factor that can contribute to their tendency to engage in risky behaviors as they develop like substance use.

 Is there a correct parenting style?

While parenting styles are referred to in many different ways across family relationships research, there are two important concepts that help understand parental behavior. According to Maccoby and Martin (1983), parent responsiveness and parent demandingness are important elements when characterizing parental attitudes and behavior. Parent responsiveness refers to the parents’ ability to respond to their adolescents' needs in a supportive manner. Parent demandingness, however, measures the extent to which parents expect “adult-like” behavior such as taking on responsibilities that are not prototypical of children. Together, these two elements create four possible combinations that result in four main parenting styles including authoritarian, authoritative, indifferent and indulgent (Maccoby & Martin, 1983).

Authoritarian parenting styles, as introduced above, is low on the responsiveness scale yet high on the demandingness scale. This suggests that in parent-adolescent relationships, parents expect absolute obedience from their child. In this case, when a child demonstrates complete submission to their guardians, the parents may not necessarily view open communication with their child as productive when establishing standards for them. On the other hand, parents who fall under the indulgent parenting style are high on the responsiveness scale yet low on demandingness. As the complete opposite of the authoritarian style, indulgent parents do encourage honest and respectful conversations while maintaining fewer rules and little-to-no real discipline. Low demandingness and low responsiveness, for instance, are characterized as indifferent parenting. Indifferent parents expect less of their child, are less responsive to their needs often demonstrating poor communication or emotional availability.

Oppositely, the authoritative parenting style values both high responsiveness and high demandingness. This combination means there is an equal importance placed on open communication, and assertive expectations through monitorization, or a form of self-monitoring. This results in a unique opportunity where adolescent autonomy is encouraged and respected by parents, often taking the adolescents’ opinions into account. Given that autonomy is very important for adolescent development, the authoritative style is considered to be the most optimal choice since it aligns with adolescents’ autonomy needs best (Bosca & Cojocaru, 2023). At this particular stage in development, especially those entering early adolescence will experience a shift in the autonomy and emotional independence they are searching for due to changes in their school social structure. By parents trusting and involving their adolescence in making more decisions regarding themselves, this helps build toward a  better parent-adolescent relationship and overall aids with adolescent identity development. However, it is important to recognize that aspects such as individual growth, peers, and culture amongst others influence development too. While the “right” parenting style for one family or individual might be a good fit for them, it may not work the same way for another. 

Literature on the topic often focuses on the effects of parenting styles and their corresponding attitudes. These include emotional closeness, open communication, the extent of parental restrictiveness, permissiveness in academic settings, and how it may relate to adolescents’ when it comes to academic performance. However, the impact that various parenting styles have on other behaviors that adolescents are more likely to engage in, such as risky behavior is also important to consider. Particularly substance use, as first use is a common reckless choice that is made at this stage.

Parenting and substance use

An early study by Baumrind (1991) sought to investigate the interaction between parenting styles and substance use by using the responsiveness and demandingness variables to first characterize parenting styles and then determine the effects each type of parenting style had on substance use. By rating responsiveness and demandingness at various levels (low, medium-low, medium-high, and high), Baumrind determined six different parenting types- authoritative, democratic, directive, good-enough, non-directive, and unengaged families. The author decided to categorize into six categories, first based on either passiveness and authoritarian attitudes, and later subdivided into more specific categories.

On Baumrind’s scale, authoritative parenting styles still refer to high demand and high response. Democratic, is a blend of high response, moderate demand. Directive families resulted in medium to high scores of restrictiveness and equal demand, yet low to medium scores in responsiveness. The good-enough category was a space for medium to low to medium to high scores overall. Non-restrictive showed significantly higher scores in responsiveness compared to parental restrictable and non-engaged scores which were consistently low.

Using self-reporting surveys to assess adolescent’s attitudes on substance use, values, and behavior, showed that individuals from authoritative and democratic families in particular had negative views towards these attitudes (Baumrind, 1991). Not only this, but prosocial behavior, behavior that benefits other people, and self-regulation were found to be highest for people who were categorized as a part of these families compared to the other four parenting styles (Baumrind, 1991). Together with a higher ability to restrain themselves from engaging in substance use and competency, does suggest that there is a benefit in parenting styles having an assertive combination of expectations while still trusting adolescents.

References

Flaticon. (n.d.). Family free icon designed by Freepik. https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/family_2061474?term=family&page=1&position=33&origin=search&related_id=2061474

Questa Soft. (2023). The influence of parenting styles on adolescent development. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1175933

Baumrind, D. (1991). The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 11(1), 56–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431691111004

Strugaru, V. (n.d.). The influence of parenting styles on adolescent development. https://www.rcis.ro/en/current-issue/3166-the-influence-of-parenting-styles-on-adolescent-development.html

Maccoby, E., & Martin, J. (1983). Socialization in the context of the family: Parent–child interaction. In E. M. Hetherington (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 4. Socialization, personality, and social development (pp. 1–101). Wiley.