Associations between parenting style and quality of attachment to mother in middle childhood and adolescence

Associations between parenting style and the quality of child attachment to mother were investigated in middle childhood and adolescence. Two hundred and two children in middle childhood (grades 4-6) and 212 adolescents (grades 7-11) participated. In the younger group, secure attachment was assessed by the Network of Relationships Questionnaire (NRI; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985) and two types of insecure attachment by the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ; Finnegan et al., 1996). In adolescence, secure attachment and three types of insecure attachment were measured by the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ; Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). All participants provided ratings on three dimensions of parenting style characteristic of their families (parental involvement, psychological autonomy granting, and behavioral control) using the Steinberg Parenting Styles Questionnaire (Lamborn et al., 1991). As predicted, the three parenting factors successfully differentiated between different styles of attachment to mother. At both ages authoritative parenting (i.e., higher levels of all three parenting dimensions) was positively associated with secure attachment to mother, whereas negligent parenting (i.e., lower levels on all three parenting dimensions) predicted insecure attachment, although results were less straightforward for preoccupied attachment. Further, unique patterns of contributions by the parenting dimensions distinguished between different types of insecure attachment. Specifically, parental involvement and psychological autonomy granting uniquely predicted secure and fearful attachment but in opposite directions; parental involvement and behavioral control made independent negative contributions to avoidant/dismissing attachment; and psychological autonomy granting uniquely contributed to preoccupied attachment in adolescence. Findings on the whole were consistent across the two age groups except for preoccupied attachment in middle childhood, for which results were non-significant. Validity of the measure for insecure attachment in middle childhood was also discussed.