Inflexible Parents, Inflexible Kids: A 6-Year Longitudinal Study of Parenting Style and the Development of Psychological Flexibility in Adolescents

@article{williams2012inflexible,
  author = {Williams, Kathryn E. and Ciarrochi, Joseph and Heaven, Patrick C. L.},
  title = {Inflexible Parents, Inflexible Kids: A 6-Year Longitudinal Study of Parenting Style and the Development of Psychological Flexibility in Adolescents},
  year = {2012},
  journal = {Journal of Youth and Adolescence},
  volume = {41},
  number = {8},
  pages = {1053-1066},
  publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC},
  doi = {10.1007/s10964-012-9744-0}
}

In plain language

Psychological flexibility is the ability to respond to your thoughts, feelings, and circumstances in whatever way best serves your goals — staying aware of the present moment, adapting to what a situation demands, shifting perspective, and persisting or changing course as needed. It is a core ingredient of mental health. This study asked how parenting shapes the development of this skill during the teenage years, and whether teens shape their parents in return.

The researchers followed 749 students at five Australian schools for six years, from Grade 7 (average age about 12) to Grade 12. Students reported on their parents’ style — authoritarian (cold, dictatorial, intrusive), authoritative (warm but with clear expectations and monitoring), or permissive — in Grades 7 and 12, and completed measures of psychological flexibility every year from Grade 9 to Grade 12.

Adolescents whose parents were authoritarian in Grade 7 showed lower psychological flexibility across the later high school years, while warm, democratic (authoritative) parenting was associated with greater flexibility; permissive parenting appeared neutral. Intriguingly, the street ran both ways: teens who were more psychologically flexible in Grade 9 had parents who later became less authoritarian and more authoritative. The findings suggest that cold, controlling parenting hinders teens from learning to manage their own inner lives — and that fostering warmth and autonomy may set up a virtuous cycle between parent and child.

Key findings

• Psychological flexibility decreased, on average, as adolescents got older (Grades 9 through 12).
• Authoritarian parenting (low warmth, high control) in Grade 7 predicted lower psychological flexibility in Grades 9–12, confirmed by multi-level modelling.
• Increases in authoritarian parenting and decreases in authoritative parenting across high school were associated with lower adolescent psychological flexibility.
• Authoritative parenting (high warmth and control) in Grade 12 was positively correlated with psychological flexibility in Grades 9–12; permissive parenting was largely unrelated to flexibility.
• Structural equation modelling showed the relationship was bidirectional: adolescents’ psychological flexibility in Grade 9 predicted later decreases in authoritarian and increases in authoritative parenting.
• Effects of parenting on psychological flexibility did not differ by adolescent gender, consistent with earlier self-regulation research.

Related work

• All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
• Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis

Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.