In plain language
Self-compassion, treating yourself with support and acceptance rather than harsh judgement when things go wrong, is linked to better wellbeing and less depression, anxiety, and stress in teenagers. Theory suggests that parents help build this capacity: warm, supportive caregiving is thought to develop a child's inner "soothing system", whereas controlling, guilt-inducing parenting may feed self-criticism. But very little longitudinal research had tested how parenting styles relate to teens' self-compassion as both change over time.
This study followed 2,596 Australian adolescents annually across four years of high school (Grades 9 to 12), measuring compassionate self-responding (CSR), uncompassionate self-responding (USR, such as self-judgement and over-identification with failure), perceived parental support, and perceived parental psychological control. Multi-level modelling allowed the researchers to separate stable "trait" differences between teens from year-to-year "state" changes within each teen.
The two sides of parenting mapped onto two distinct sides of self-compassion. Supportive parenting was linked mainly to more compassionate self-responding, while psychologically controlling parenting was linked mainly to more uncompassionate self-responding, and controlling parenting predicted increases in self-criticism over time. Strikingly, these effects varied a great deal from teen to teen: some adolescents' self-compassion shifted markedly in years when their parents' behaviour changed, while others barely changed at all. The findings underscore that parenting matters for adolescent self-compassion, but not equally for everyone.
Key findings
- Adolescents who reported more supportive parenting generally reported higher compassionate self-responding (r = .38) and lower uncompassionate self-responding, whereas psychologically controlling parenting was linked to higher USR (r = .34) and lower CSR.
- Effects were domain-specific: supportive parenting (trait and state) was strongly associated with compassionate self-responding but only weakly with uncompassionate self-responding, while controlling parenting showed the reverse pattern.
- In years when a teen reported more parental support than usual, they reported more self-compassion than usual; in years with more parental psychological control than usual, they reported more self-criticism than usual.
- Longitudinal (cross-lagged) analyses indicated that psychologically controlling parenting predicted the development of uncompassionate self-responding over time, and there was no evidence that teens' self-compassion drove changes in parenting.
- The strength of the parenting-self-compassion link was significantly heterogeneous: some adolescents were highly sensitive to changes in parenting while others showed little to no change.
- On average, uncompassionate self-responding rose from Grade 9 to Grade 11 before easing in Grade 12, while compassionate self-responding stayed relatively stable with a small increase by Grade 12.
How to cite
APA
Kaufmann, S., Ciarrochi, J., Yap, K., & Fraser, M. I. (2023). Perceived parenting style and adolescent self-compassion: A longitudinal, within-person approach. Mindfulness, 14, 2745–2756. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02232-2
BibTeX
@article{kaufmann2023perceived,
author = {Kaufmann, Sorcha and Ciarrochi, Joseph and Yap, Keong and Fraser, Madeleine I.},
title = {Perceived Parenting Style and Adolescent Self-Compassion: A Longitudinal, Within-Person Approach},
journal = {Mindfulness},
year = {2023},
volume = {14},
pages = {2745--2756},
doi = {10.1007/s12671-023-02232-2}
}
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.