Effective and Ineffective Parenting

The current study examined the impact of effective and ineffective parenting on emerging adult psychological adjustment as well as parenting characteristics associated with adjusted and maladjusted emerging adults. Participants were 175 male and 309 female emerging adults who completed questionnaires assessing their perceptions of their parents’ parenting practices, discipline strategies, and psychopathology as well as their own psychological adjustment. Participants reporting effective parenting from two parents experienced the best adjustment, whereas participants reporting ineffective parenting from two parents experienced the worst adjustment, and participants reporting effective parenting from at least one parent appeared to be protected against the particularly harmful effects of ineffective parenting from two parents. Parental psychopathology, harsh discipline, involvement, and regard for parent and child all strongly differentiated adjusted and maladjusted participants.