Introduction
Parental guidance is fundamental in a child’s upbringing and, more importantly, their adolescent transition. Historical parenting theories developed by Baumrind and Cherry contend that children’s upbringing determines their behavioral traits as they grow into adulthood. As such, adolescent children will exhibit behavior shaped by the different types of relationships they have with their parents. Through the analysis of theoretical frameworks and empirical research, it has been established that poor parenting is directly linked with adolescent delinquent behavior (Carter et al., 2022).
To this end, poor parenting spans neglect, lack of guidance, over-assertion of parental authority, irrational discipline, exposure to violence, and many other forms contrary to a conducive home. The existence of one or many of these forms impacts an adolescent’s perspective about life in general, which in turn affects their behavior. This paper argues that negative parental guidance affects adolescent behavior through the lens of authoritarian parenting, permissive parenting, and authoritative parenting.
Negative Parental Guidance Affects Adolescent Behavior
Authoritarian Parenting
In the typologies of parenting styles, authoritarian parenting demands high expectations from children. An authoritative parent exerts absolute power over a child, which means the child should observe a parent’s orders without question. Parenting with an authoritarian approach is highly damaging because parents are rigorous. Authoritarian parents also subject children to severe punishment, thus instilling constant fear in the home environment.
To a great extent, parenting by fear alters the psychological state of a child as they move into adolescence (Kingsbury et al., 2020). A child raised with authoritarian parents develops chronic anxiety because of the constant fear of being on the wrong side of the strict rules set by parents. Due to this, the young adolescent is caged and unable to explore their self outside the confines of parental boundaries.
In light of this, authoritarian parenting negatively impacts adolescent behavior by ruining self-confidence. A child raised by overly strict parents is conditioned to execute without independent thinking. Once adolescents are exposed to the real world, they cannot exercise independent thought and decision-making. Moreover, children raised in the authoritarian style tend to be very rebellious because of the lack of freedom in the home environment. Such adolescents will resort to drug abuse, wrong clicks, absconding from school, and problematic behavior with their peers and teachers. All this stems from the need to regain their power in the real world.
Permissive Parenting
On the other hand, permissive parenting is laid-back, resulting in no guidance for adolescents. This type of parenting is negative in the sense that it is overtly accommodative of children’s behavior. As with all human beings, the liberty to act as one pleases always leads to wrong choices. Children need to learn critical life lessons, such as decision-making and the consequences of their decisions. The adverse impact of permissive parenting on adolescent’s behavior occurs due to an absolute lack of guidance. Such parents do not understand how to support their children appropriately as they morph into adolescents. These children will likely learn from their peers or the idols they watch on digital platforms.
Much like the authoritarian parenting style, permissive parenting results in emotional, behavioral, and academic challenges in adolescent behavior. Children brought up through permissive parenting do not develop emotional connections with their parents. The lack of this essential human connection at home infiltrates the adolescent lives of the children. Such children will have difficulty cultivating friendships with their peers. Consequently, the adolescents develop low self-esteem, affecting their overall well-being.
In terms of behavioral problems, the adverse effects of permissive parenting often force children to adopt coping behaviors to fit in. Some adolescents may resort to drugs to form emotional connections, while others will join criminal gangs to gain a sense of belonging. Also, adolescents of permissive parents lack guidance on what is wrong and right (Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2022). They are thus likely to be swayed into indiscipline as they know their parents won’t know of their misconduct. As a result, these adolescents lose focus on their academic requirements and record poor performance.
Authoritative Parenting
Authoritative parenting is by far the recommended parenting style as it promotes adolescents’ social and emotional well-being. The American Pediatrics asserts that authoritative parenting is the best parenting approach. Theoretically, it is essential to note that authoritative parenting is equivalent to liberal parenting (Glazer, 2023). Adolescents brought up with authoritative parenting experience expression of opinion, freedom of choice, a sense of belonging, and warmth in the environment.
Parents who are cognizant of their children’s needs will provide all these elements to ensure their children grow up responsible. However, even in the best of all scenarios, external circumstances may affect the effective exercise of authoritative parenting. For instance, economic hardship eliminates the freedom of choice parents can give their children. Inevitable parental conflict may cause emotional absence as parents resolve their conflicts.
With the advent of such issues, authoritative parenting exposes adolescents to a whole new, strange world. Well-raised adolescents from authoritative goals may be traumatized by shifting events at home and in the outside world. Research holds that children raised through authoritative frameworks develop better emotional health, are more physically active, and experience fewer behavioral issues. Similarly, interrupting the healthy dynamics throws the adolescents off-balance as they are accustomed to the parents’ guidance. Also, authoritative parenting instills a structure where adolescents expect guidance. Children may exhibit good or bad behavior depending on the circumstances if the guidance is taken away.
Negative Parental Guidance Does Not Affect Adolescent Behavior
The most outstanding argument that negative parenting style does not affect adolescent behavior is that adolescents are autonomous. Proponents of this argument portend that children are autonomous beings with a genetic make-up, different childhood experiences, and overall different outlook on life (Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2022). This argument isolates parenting styles from the behavioral outcomes of adolescents. In addition, it is argued that adolescent behavior is a construct of myriads of factors rather than parenting alone.
A classic example is that children whose parents have a criminal record do not always end up like their parents. Some will grow into young, responsible, and law-abiding adults despite exposure and interaction with the kind of parents that raised them. In the same measure, it is possible that as children grow, they continue learning from their peers and teachers. This allows them to undo any derogatory tendencies they pick from hostile parenting.
It is accurate to state that young adults learn throughout their development, but it is also important to note that the home is the first reference point for any human being. Hostile parenting is capable of causing mental health issues such as aggression, hyperactivity, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies among adolescents. The health field proves this through statistics indicating specific patterns from childhood experiences.
Thousands of young people who witness violence at an early age are likely to engage in violence as they mature. In the same breadth, thousands will learn about amicable conflict resolution and not plunge into violence. What is more important to note is that it is harder to undo a behavior than to reinforce positive tendencies. Exposure to hostile parenting introduces the chance to develop inappropriate adolescent behavior, which could have been avoided by parenting correctly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, parental guidance is pivotal in adolescent behavior as established parents deploy different parenting styles to raise their children. These three dominant parenting styles are authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive. Authoritative parenting is a great parenting style because it instills self-reliance and the use of logic. However, it can be negatively jeopardized by the presence of socio-economic hardships. The effects translate to emotional instability, causing defiant behavior among teenagers.
Authoritarian and permissive parenting, on the other hand, is entirely hostile. These two parenting styles leave children scarred as they transition to their teenage hood. The emotional and psychological impact manifests in different ways, including delinquent behavior, poor social connection, lack of self-independence, low self-esteem as well as poor decision-making. As much as teenagers are independent beings, the effects of negative parental guidance are evident in the behavior of adolescents.
References
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Glazer, S. (2023). Social media and youth well-being. In CQ Researcher. CQ Press. Web.
Kingsbury, M., Sucha, E., Manion, I., Gilman, S. E., & Colman, I. (2020). Adolescent mental health following exposure to positive and harsh parenting in childhood. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 65(6), 392-400. Web.
Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., Rudolph, J., Kerin, J., & Bohadana-Brown, G. (2022). Parent emotional regulation: A meta-analytic review of its association with parenting and child adjustment. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46(1), 63-82. Web.