Connection between Parenting Styles and Self-harm in Adolescence

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate possible associations between parenting styles and the occurrence of self-harm in adolescence, in the context of potential gender differences. In a large-scale survey, we administered a questionnaire asking about basic demographic characteristics, perceived quality of relationships within the respondents’ families, and the occurrence of self-injurious behavior. The questionnaire therefore contained the Self-Harm Behavior Questionnaire (Gutierrez, 2001) and the Self-Harm Inventory (Sansone, Sansone & Wiedermann, 1995), and the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Parenting Styles in the Family (Čáp, 1994). The research sample consisted of 1,466 respondents aged between 11 and 16 years, of whom almost 20% had at least some experience with self-harm. Adolescents living in two-parent families were less likely to harm themselves: Nearly 60% of all adolescents coming from complete families had no experience with self-harm at all. Adolescents from single-parent families, on the other hand, were most frequently found among experimenters and chronic self-harmers – in both groups they constituted more than 20% of respondents. The study yielded interesting findings regarding the quality of respondents’ relationships with parents as well as perceived parenting styles, with self-harm occurring very frequently with weak and inconsistent parenting styles (around 40% each)