under construction, April 9, 2025, by Dr. Katty P. Ho
Parenting & Child Outcomes
“Parents play a key role in the way their children develop, either contributing to the child’s developmental competence or failing in the parenting socialization process when children manifest a lack of instrumental competence” (Garcia & Serra, 2019, p. 2; emphases added)
GARCIA AND SERRA HAVE PUBLISHED many empirical studies on the short-term and long-term effects of parenting style on child outcomes (e.g., Garcia & Serra, 2019). In their 2019 study, they attempted to address the research gap by surveying a very large sample of Spaniards that comprised 602 adolescents (age 12-17), 610 young adults (age 18-34), 469 middle-aged adults (age 35-59), and 388 older adults (age 60-75) and administered to them the same sets of socialization outcome measures. Through this cross-sectional sample, they were able to compare the effect of parenting style across age groups and to observe both its short-term effect on the adolescents and its long-term effect on the adults from different life stages.
Garcia and Serra tested the effect of the four parenting styles (authoritative, indulgent, authoritarian, and neglectful) on three sets of socialization outcomes: (a) self-esteem (a traditional socialization outcome measure) that included academic self-esteem, emotional self-esteem, and family self-esteem, (b) psychosocial maturity (a key attribute of optimal growth of adolescents and adults associated with positive development) that included self-competence, social competence, and empathy, and (c) emotional maladjustment (a frequent socialization outcome in parenting studies that represents failure in the socialization of emotion) that included nervousness, hostility, and emotional instability. (To learn about the results of this study, click here.)
RESEARCH ON the parenting effect on child developmental outcomes showed an abundance of evidence on “how parents play a key role in the way their children develop” (Garcia & Serra, 2019, p. 2). In their seminal review paper published in 1993, developmental psychologists Darling and Steinberg integrated previously published definitions of optimal parenting and the kinds of benefits on the child to formulate their integrative conceptual model, in which the relationships between parental values/goals, parenting style, parenting practices, and child/adolescent personality and outcomes are illuminated. (To learn more about this study, click here.)
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