Harsh Parenting Leads to Poor School & Academic Outcomes

A recent study published on February 8th, 2017, found that children raised in a "harsh parenting environment" were more likely to be influenced by the opinions of their peers. The study tracked 1,500 students who were in or above 7th grade.

Researchers concluded that by 9th grade the students who were parented harshly were more likely to exalt their peer group above all other responsibilities. This included household rules and parental guidance. On average, these students took part in more risky behaviors and unsatisfactory life decisions by 11th grade than the norm.

Males in this study saw greater delinquency, including violence and stealing, and females were more likely to engage in frequent and early sexual behaviors.

The study's lead author Rochelle F Hentges is a developmental psychologist from the University of Pittsburg. Maarten Rikken interviewed Hentges for a Research Gate article. In this interview, Hentges defined harsh parenting as:

In our study, harsh parenting was considered to be acts of verbal or physical aggression, such as yelling, name-calling, shoving, or threatening the child.

Hentges summed up the study's results by saying:

We found that harsh parenting in seventh grade (around age 12-13) predicted an extreme peer orientation in eighth grade. An extreme peer orientation means that the child is more influenced by what their peers think or want instead of their parents ... For boys, higher delinquency predicted lower educational attainment at age 21, while for girls it was early sexual behavior that predicted lower educational attainment.

One of the most interesting aspects of this study was that Hentges also analyzed test scores and average GPAs. They also recorded the student's beliefs about the importance of education and their goals for educational attainment.

Hentges study offers additional insight into the differences between parenting styles. She discovered that, "children who were exposed to higher levels of harsh parenting were more likely to say that it was okay to break their parents’ rules."

For more information on parenting, read Parenting With Love And Logic.