Parenting Models

In this section, we discuss several of the most influential theoretical

models dealing with parenting of adolescents. We do
not endeavor to review all of the research that has been done
on parenting of adolescents. Rather, we focus on models that
have had the widest influence on the broad conclusions that
have been drawn about parenting of adolescentswhich parenting
strategies are effective and whyand which lie
behind the practical advice that parents often receive. In turn,
for each model we take the most influential research as representative
of the model.
The Parenting Styles Model
The parenting styles model has spawned a vast literature
related to both child and adolescent development. Different
parenting styles instruments have been created, and scores of
empirical studies have been done. For the present purposes,
we focus on the work that has been the most influential for
adolescent research. This, of course, means the theoretical
and empirical work of Baumrind and the theoretical work of
Maccoby and Martin. We consider, in addition, the empirical
work on adolescence that has appeared in flagship developmental
journals such as Child Development and Developmental
Psychology, and much of that has come from the
Steinberg and Dornbusch research groups.
Background. The parenting styles model is based on
the theoretical ideas originally presented by Baumrind (1967)
and later revised by Maccoby and Martin (1983). Baumrind
grouped nursery-school children according to their social
adjustment and then determined how the parents of those
groups differed. Her initial results were that (a) children
who were most self-reliant, self-controlled, explorative, and
content had parents who were controlling and demanding;
but they were also warm, rational, and receptive to the childs
communication; (b) children who . . . were discontent,
withdrawn, and distrustful had parents who were detached
and controlling, and somewhat less warm than other parents;
and (c) the least self-reliant, explorative, and selfcontrolled
children had parents who were noncontrolling,
nondemanding, and relatively warm (Baumrind, 1971,
pp. 12). Baumrind termed these three groups of parents
authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive, respectively.
Believing that parental control was particularly important,
she further articulated the qualititative differences between
authoritative and authoritarian parents control strategies
(Baumrind, 1968). Authoritative parents, according to Baumrind,
communicated with the child about the demands that
they placed on the child, whereas authoritarian parents
tended to shut down communication about their demands.
Later, Maccoby and Martin (1983) argued that Baumrinds
three styles and a wealth of other findings in the parenting
literature could be roughly subsumed into a four-field table,
with one axis contrasting parents who are controlling and
demanding with those who are not and the other contrasting
parents who are warm, responsive, and child-centered with

those who are not. To their credit, Maccoby and Martin related
these constructs more broadly to the psychological literature,
and they suggested mechanisms through which such
constructs might work. For instance, responsiveness, according
to them, meant a willingness to respond to the childs signals.
It was closer to the ideas of contingent responsiveness in
attachment theory, to Pulkkinens (1982) child centeredness,
or to the concept of reinforcement in learning theory than it
was to warmth in the sense of unconditional, noncontingent
expressions of love and support. Based on Seligmans (1975)
learned-helplessness studies, they suggested that parents responsiveness
should give the child a sense of control thatin
authoritative familieswould be balanced by the control that
parents exerted over the child. Bidirectional communication
between parents and child was an essential part of this
process.
Yet although the four-field table has been widely used in
the parenting styles research that has followed, in conceptual
discussions of authoritativeness, communication has faded as
an important feature and the concepts of warmth and responsiveness
have been blurred. In this body of work, the major
conceptual difference between authoritative and authoritarian
parents is the presence or absence of warmth along with
the high levels of control that both types of parents are
thought to exert over their children.
Extensions of the Parenting Styles Model. More recently,
parenting styles have been distinguished from parenting
practices in an attempt to conceptually refine the model
and improve the possibilities for discovering mechanisms
(Darling & Steinberg, 1993). The argument was that parenting
style should be thought of as the general emotional climate
that parents create, whereas practices should be
recognized as the goal-directed behaviors in which parents
engage in order to change or shape the childs behavior. Practices
can be more or less effective depending upon the emotional
climate that parents have set up, because the emotional
climate will make the child more or less receptive to being
shaped by the practices.
In the empirical research that has followed this original,
theoretical work, however, the differentiation between styles
and practices is unclear. Sometimes, exactly the same full
scales as had previously been used to measure styles are
used again and labeled practices (e.g., Avenevoli, Sessa, &
Steinberg, 1999). Other times, the majority of items in the
measures of practices are identical or nearly identical to
items previously used to measure parenting styles (e.g., B. B.
Brown, Mounts, Lamborn, & Steinberg, 1993). Furthermore,
it is difficult to look at these measures and determine whether
they are conceptually tapping styles or practices.
Limitations of the Parenting Styles Model. We introduce
the limitations of the parenting styles model with a
history of parenting styles research that might have been. The
story is fiction, but we tell it in order to point out how far the
actual history of parenting styles research is from ideal. Our
story anticipates the critique that follows, but it also points