The relationship of parenting style to older adolescent life-skills development in the United States

Abstract

At a large, mid-south university in the USA, 660 university freshmen (mean age = 17.9 years; 68.2% female; 86.5% non-Hispanic white) were surveyed regarding their perceptions of their parents’parenting behaviors and their perceptions of their own life-skills development. The parenting style index consisted of the two parenting style dimensions: responsiveness and demandingness . The Life-skills Development Inventory-College Form was used to measure life skills in four domains: interpersonal communication, decision making, health maintenance, and identity development. Simultaneous regression results indicated that parental responsiveness significantly predicted life-skills development in all four domains even when age, gender, and socioeconomic status were taken into account; whereas, parental demandingness was not a significant predictor in any of the four domains of life-skills development. The results of this study suggest that positive life-skills development in older adolescents is related to having been reared by a parenting style high in responsiveness. Recommendations are included regarding the need to disseminate this information.