ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on parents’ use of discipline to socialize desired child behaviors. It describes the study of parenting and child discipline in historical context and then presents central issues in this area of research. It provides to major theories that have guided our understanding of discipline. The chapter reviews research on predictors of different forms of discipline, child outcomes associated with different forms of discipline, how discipline is situated within the overall climate of the parent–child relationship, and moderators and mediators of links between parental discipline and child outcomes. It explores practical information including interventions, laws, and policies that have attempted to alter parents’ discipline. Individual characteristics of both children and parents predict the forms of discipline that parents use. Parents’ stress increases their use of harsh and inconsistent discipline through physiological, emotional, and cognitive mechanisms. Parental discipline encompasses specific behaviors, but these behaviors are situated within the overall climate of the parent–child relationship.
