Therefore, knowledge on the link between parenting and delinquency has implications for prevention and intervention policies focusing on delinquency, in particular parent education and skills training. Interventions need to be “theory-driven” and based on sound research in order to be successful (Kazdin 2001). Moreover, insight in these processes is essential for the development or improvement of prevention and intervention strategies. These negative child-parent transactions increase the risk of setting a child off on a delinquent path that starts in the early teens, entails many delinquent acts and persists far into adulthood (Moffitt 1993 Patterson and Yoerger 2002). The child’s difficult behavior affects parents’ disciplinary strategies, resulting in harsher and inconsistent punishments and less involvement by parents in the socialization process (Patterson 1982). Other theories such as those of Moffitt ( 1993, 2006) and Patterson (e.g., Patterson and Yoerger 2002) go beyond explaining only level differences in delinquency and examine how delinquency changes by age. 1988), and in the social bond model of Hirschi ( 1969). Interest in the family was apparent in early theories on social disorganization (Gove and Crutchfield 1982 Van Voorhis et al. Research on family antecedents and correlates of delinquency is of direct importance to both theory and practice. The first goal is to analyze which parenting dimensions are related to delinquency and the second is to identify moderators that affect the parenting–delinquency association. In a series of meta-analyses we summarize and integrate previous findings on the link between parenting and delinquency. Studies vary on the kinds of delinquency and parenting dimensions that are investigated, on how these constructs are measured, and on the populations from which the samples are drawn. An important reason for this difficulty is the heterogeneity of the studies and their findings in this field of research. Although lay as well as scholarly theories assume that a link between parenting and delinquency exists, clear conclusions concerning the magnitude of this link are difficult to draw. In some courts parents are even penalized for the antisocial conduct of their children (e.g., Bessant and Hil 1998 Drakeford 1996 Dundes 1994). Parents of young people are often blamed for the delinquent behavior of their children. Implications for theory and parenting are discussed. Furthermore, fewer than 20% of the studies focused on parenting behavior of fathers, despite the fact that the effect of poor support by fathers was larger than poor maternal support, particularly for sons. Although both dimensions of warmth and support seem to be important, surprisingly very few studies focused on parenting styles. Several effect sizes were moderated by parent and child gender, child age, informant on parenting, and delinquency type, indicating that some parenting behaviors are more important for particular contexts or subsamples. The strongest links were found for parental monitoring, psychological control, and negative aspects of support such as rejection and hostility, accounting for up to 11% of the variance in delinquency. This meta-analysis of 161 published and unpublished manuscripts was conducted to determine whether the association between parenting and delinquency exists and what the magnitude of this linkage is.
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