The Effects of Family Structure and Parenting Style on School Disciplinary Incidents of High School Seniors

Parents’ relationships with their adolescents certainly have an impact on their adolescents’ behavior at school. Two factors in these relationships include (a) Parenting styles, a construct that measures the level of involvement and control of parent, and is an indicator of an adolescent’s well-being; and (b) Family structure in the form of two parents and single parent families differ in the support that each inherently offers also affecting the adolescent’s behavior. This study sampled 332 male and female high school seniors from three local suburban schools of Wichita that addressed incidence of aggression and its relationship to parenting styles and family structure. Seniors completed a demographic survey that gathered family structure information and number of disciplinary incidents; and they also completed a parenting style survey that measured parents’ parenting style level. The study found that adolescents from two parent families were less likely to receive disciplinary incidents compared to adolescents from other family structures. Also, analysis revealed that adolescents living with parents using an authoritative parenting style were less likely to receive disciplinary incidents compared to adolescents living with parents using non-authoritative parenting styles (authoritarian, permissive, neglectful). This study did not find an interaction between family structure and parenting style which previous research had suggested that authoritative parenting style tends to benefit adolescents regardless of the family structure.