Parental Supervision and Delinquency

Abstract

A review of the literature suggests that parental supervision over their children is a significant variable in controlling the amount of delinquent behaviour; high supervision is associated with low delinquency. The relationship remains when variables such as mother's affection, parental conflict, parental aggression, mother's self-confidence, father's deviance, father's absence, father's occupation are controlled. And it appears to be effective under extremely adverse conditions such as poverty and authoritarian and repressive methods of child rearing. Training packages providing basic information about processes of child development and emphasizing positive techniques of child management, with parental supervision as an essential ingredient, need to be further developed and evaluated as a means of reducing delinquency.