ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on parenting practices, both as one aspect of the parent-adolescent relationship and as determinants of outcomes or as influences on how adolescents turn out to be. It discusses parent-adolescent conflict, parental influence, and the necessity to make adolescents accountable for their actions. Parenting practices are one of the cornerstones of the parent-adolescent as well as the parent-child relationship. Parenting style is the environmental variable that “causes” the child and adolescent outcomes. There is the obvious possibility that many parents adapt their child-rearing practices to fit their children’s behaviors and personalities. Adolescents can turn off positive parental gestures just as adults can turn off positive spousal behaviors. A wide range of adult personality configurations can lead to authoritative parenting. Different types of genetically influenced configurations allow for the development of such a style of parenting. An important causal mechanism in terms of child-rearing practices resides in environmentally induced stressors, particularly poverty, unemployment, marital conflict, divorce, and social isolation.
