Abstract.
This study examines the associations, and possible causal relationship, between mothers' authoritarian attitudes to discipline and child behaviour using cross-sectional and prospective data from a large population sample surveyed in the 1970 British Cohort Study. Results show a clear linear relationship between the degree of maternal approval of authoritarian child-rearing attitudes and the rates of conduct problems at age 5 and age 10. This association is independent of the confounding effects of socio-economic status and maternal psychological distress. Maternal authoritarian attitudes independently predicted the development of conduct problems 5 years later at age 10. The results of this longitudinal study suggest that authoritarian parenting attitudes expressed by mothers may be of significance in the development of conduct problems.
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Accepted: 29 January 2003
Correspondence to Dr. A. Thompson
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Thompson, A., Hollis, C. & Richards†, D. Authoritarian parenting attitudes as a risk for conduct problems . European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 12, 84–91 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-003-0324-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-003-0324-4