Refining the mutiple-forms approach to control: Toward a new generation of theory and Research.



Given these issues, it is necessary to refine the multiple-forms approach to parental control. To this end, we suggest conceptualizing parental control as only those kinds of parenting characterized by parents’ pressure, intrusiveness, and dominance. Thus, parental control involves attempts at forcing children to meet demands, solving problems for children, and taking a parental rather than child perspective. In contrast, parents can support children’s autonomy by encouraging them to take initiative, allowing them to solve problems on their own, and taking the child’s perspective. With such a conceptualization, parenting labeled psychological control and authoritarianism as well as other types of intrusive parenting—whether it be styles or practices—such as power assertive discipline would continue to fall under the rubric of control, whereas parenting labeled psychological autonomy and encouragement of independence would fall at the other end of the dimension under the rubric of autonomy support. In this conceptualization, parental control is a broader and more inclusive dimension of parenting than has been permitted by considering such forms as psychological control because it includes parents’ pressure, intrusiveness, and dominance in relation to children’s feelings and thoughts as well as their behavior. We suggest considering other forms of what is currently considered parental control as a relatively orthogonal dimension of parenting: structure. 

In the context of self-determination theory, Grolnick et al. defined structure in the parenting context as parents’ organization of children’s environment to facilitate children’s competence. When parents are structuring, they highlight the relations between actions and outcomes through clear and consistent guidelines, expectations, and rules for children; they also provide children with  predictable consequences for and clear feedback about their actions . In contrast to creating a structured environment, parents can create a chaotic one in which they fail to provide children with such organization. Conceptualized as such, parental structure includes parenting styles and practices labeled behavioral control, firm enforcement, firm (vs. lax) control, and strictness-supervision. Indeed, Rothbaum and Weisz used a definition of guidance that was similar to our definition of structure, identifying several such forms of parenting as reflecting guidance. Notably, structure can be targeted at not only children’s behavior but also their thoughts and feelings, given that parents may use structure to facilitate children’s internalization of key values. The structure construct intersects with theory and research on parental discipline that focuses on parents’ responses to children’s transgressions. Most notably, in Grusec and Goodnow’s model of discipline, the clear and consistent messages and rules predicted to facilitate internalization fall under the rubric of structure. The distinction between parental control and structure addresses the three drawbacks of the multiple-forms approach we outlined earlier by 

(a) facilitating clear conclusions about the effects of parental control, as well as other forms of parenting such as structure; 

(b) separating dimensions of parenting from targets of parenting; and

 (c) linking parenting dimensions to basic mechanisms of children’s development, thereby more fully elucidating the process by which socialization occurs.

 As a consequence, the approach we have proposed has the potential to move the field forward so that it can take into account multiple characteristics of the socialization process—an endeavor Grusec and Goodnow argued is important in their landmark analysis of parental discipline. 

 parental

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