TITLE:
Parenting Adolescents in an Increasingly Diverse World: Links to Adolescents’ Psychopathology
AUTHORS:
Inge Seiffge-Krenke
KEYWORDS:
Parenting Style, Psychological Control, Psychopathology
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.11 No.6,
June
4,
2020
ABSTRACT: Studies in Europe and North America have
shown a strong impact of a negative parenting style (such as psychological control,
separation anxiety and a lack of support) on adolescents’ health. Western
societies are increasingly becoming more ethnically diverse and we need more
information about these links in the majority world. This overview focuses on
the impact of cultural factors and parental rearing style on adolescent health
including studies from all over the world. A universal finding was the strong
impact of such negative parenting behaviour on depression, anxiety, and body
complaints on boys and girls in diverse countries of the majority world. The
impact was stronger for mothers’ parenting than for fathers’ and differed with
respect to the gen-der of the child. Girls from step parent families and sons
from mother-headed family were particularly sensitive to a negative parenting
style. The universal findings call for joint prevention and interventions
approaches.