Parenting processes and delinquency
There is a long tradition of research in criminology on the role families
play in fostering delinquency. [7] We know that children who grow up in
homes characterized by lack of warmth and support, whose parents lack behavior
management skills, and whose lives are characterized by conflict or maltreatment
will more likely be delinquent, whereas a supportive family can protect
children even in a very hostile and damaging external environment.
Social control theory, which emphasizes the restraining effect of parental
attachment and involvement, and social learning theory, which focuses on
how coercive family interaction patterns are learned and maintained, have
been forward as explanations of the family's role in delinquency. [8] Empirically,
there is overwhelming consistency in linking both affective and control
aspects of family socialization with delinquency. [9]
Family management.-Parental management strategies cover the range of strategies
parents use to attend to and modify their children's behavior, including
setting rules, monitoring compliance, and providing consistent discipline
for aggression and antisocial behavior. [10] Parental monitoring or supervision
is the aspect of family management or control that is most consistently
related to delinquency. This is usually measured through questions that
assess the degree to which parents know where their children are, who they
are with, and what they are doing when they are not in sight. Researchers
at the Oregon Social Learning Center, using improved measures of monitoring
that include multiple indicators, have found an especially strong role
for "monitoring" of adolescent behavior. The contribution of monitoring
to antisocial behavior becomes increasingly important over time and is
particularly significant for preventing arrest risk as antisocial children
reach early adolescence. [11] Many studies using diverse sample have confirmed
the critical role of parental supervision in relation to delinquency, and
monitoring accounts for a moderate portion of the variance in antisocial
behavior and delinquency in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies as
well as in reviews. [12] In their review of delinquency studies, James
Snyder and Gerald Patterson found that, on average, more variation in delinquency
was explained by parental control strategies of monitoring and discipline
than by other processes, such as warmth and problem solving in families.
[13] Despite the strength of the relationship between delinquency and control
strategies, this relationship does not emerge as consistently as the relationship
between delinquency and attachment. [14]
Parent-child affiliation.-One of the most studied aspects of family interaction
and delinquency is lack of closeness, warmth, or affection between parents
and children. [15] Children who feel attached to and connected to their
parents are unlikely to risk this relationship on activities of which parents
would disapprove, and this bond is a significant source of restraint in
situations of temptation. [16] Ties of affection and warmth between children
and their parents are universally linked to better behavior. Conversely,
loosening of ties sets the stage for deviance because children lose a sense
of the "psychological presence" of their parents and are free to misbehave.
Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies concur that parents rated as lacking
affection or rejecting had children who became more delinquent. [17]
A strong affiliative relationship encourages parent-child involvement and
positive family interaction. Patterson and his colleagues have linked positive
interactions, including talking with adolescents and sharing pleasant activities,
to a lowered probability of antisocial and delinquent behavior. [18] Supportive
interactions between parents and adolescents promote communication, mutual
regard, and model concern and empathy for others. Patterson's work also
suggests, however, that a positive parent-adolescent relationship may be
less effective in restraining delinquency than appropriate control strategies.
Parent-child conflict and problem solving.-Another aspect of family interaction
that has been associated with delinquent behavior among adolescents is
serious parent-child conflict and the failure to resolve conflict. The
absence of communication and problem-solving skills for coping with conflict,
or the failure to use them, may contribute to delinquency. Cross-sectional
studies have found that lack of supportive communication, presence of defensive
communication, frequent interruptions, conversation domination, and lack
of problem-solving skills are all related to delinquency. [19] Longitudinal
research has also shown poor communication to be predictive of delinquency.
[20] In families of antisocial and delinquent adolescents, family members
not only fail to communicate and experience high levels of conflict but
also are likely to perceive other member's communication as aggressive
and less willing to negotiate and compromise to work out conflict. [21]
The failure to resolve problems creates additional stress and conflict
that, in turn, taxes the abilities of parents and increase the probability
of escalated aggression. This is a coercive cycle whereby initially more
minor instances of aggressive behavior escalate, putting adolescent and
family at risk for increased aggression. In general, the association between
communication and problem-solving deficits and delinquency is a modest
one, and the research is cross-sectional and not as consistently replicated
on the parent-adolescent affiliative relationship and parental control
and delinquency.
Child maltreatment.-Extremes of lack of affiliation, inappropriate parental
control, and excessive conflict can be characterized as child maltreatment.
In their metaanalysis, Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber noted that
both neglectful and inattentive parenting and harsh and excessive use of
punishment by parents were associated with increased delinquency across
a number of studies, although they did not look specifically at maltreatment.
[22] In other discipline, research linking child maltreatment with delinquency
also suggests that maltreated children have higher rates of childhood behavior
problems as well as delinquency. [22] Recent well-constructed longitudinal
studies of this issue indicate that a record of official maltreatment increases
the probability of delinquency by about 50 percent. [24] A number of mechanisms
may link child maltreatment and delinquency, including parental modeling
of aggression. [25]
The link between physical abuse and delinquency does not necessarily equate
to a link between harsh discipline and delinquency. Rather, the evidence
is mixed; in support of the findings from the Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber
metaanalysis, recent studies also find that harsh parental discipline is
one of the predictors of delinquency. [26] Other studies have found that
it is not harsh punishment by itself, but rather parental punishment combined
with inconsistency that is associated with delinquency. [27] In a harsh
and dangerous environment, consistent strictness can protect against delinquency.
[28] It is also clear that there are cross-cultural differences in parenting
processes, particularly related to strictness and physical punishment.
For example, research on African-American families echoes the notion that
harsh and strict parenting if delivered with warmth and consistency may
be a more effective barrier to delinquency in some settings than benign
neglect and inconsistent attention. [29] Ronald Simons and colleagues suggest
that earlier studies suffered from serious methodological limitations and
oversimplified the relationship between harsh parenting and delinquency;
they find that harsh punishment is not associated with aggressiveness or
delinquency once the quality of parental involvement is controlled. [30]
Finally, because studies have found a link between a number of different
family processes and delinquency, it is reasonable to conclude that models
that consider several family processes together, such as affiliation and
control, provide a stronger explanation of delinquency. Patterson and colleagues
found intercorrelation among disruptions in five parent management areas
(monitoring, discipline, positive reinforcement, involvement, and problem
solving), suggesting a general lack of parenting skills in parent of aggressive
children, although, again, parent control of child behavior contributed
more to child outcomes than positive parenting. [31] In evaluating the
proportion of the variance in delinquency explained by combining family
factors, Snyder and Patterson found that between 10 percent and 20 percent
more variance was explained. [32] Similar results are noted in the review
by Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber, who found that using multiple family variables
improved the prediction of antisocial and delinquent behavior by 50-80
percent over the 20 percent explained when using a single family predictor.
[33]
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