Vol. 2026 No. 5 (2026)
Articles

The relationship between parenting styles and mental health in children and adolescents

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  • Tanaka Sui,
  • Himari Sato
Tanaka Sui
Shenzhen Loye Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd. Room 2505, 25th Floor, Guang feng Technology Headquarters Building, No. 8Xiandong Road, Xi li Community, Xi li Street, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China
Himari Sato
Shenzhen Loye Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd. Room 2505, 25th Floor, Guang feng Technology Headquarters Building, No. 8Xiandong Road, Xi li Community, Xi li Street, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China

Published 24-09-2026

Keywords

  • parenting styles,
  • adolescents,
  • mental health

Copyright (c) 2026 The Young Thinker's Review

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

[1]
T. . Sui and H. Sato, “The relationship between parenting styles and mental health in children and adolescents”, The Young Thinker's Rev., vol. 2026, no. 5, pp. 24–29, Sep. 2026, doi: 10.62852/ytr/2026/316.

Abstract

 Objective:​ To explore the differences between paternal and maternal parenting styles and their impact on the mental health of children and adolescents. Methods:​ A total of 200 patients who met the diagnostic criteria of the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) were assigned to the case group. Additionally, 200 primary and secondary school students were randomly selected to form a normal control group, matching basic characteristics with the case group and excluding any psychological disorders. All participants were assessed using the Family Parenting Style Questionnaire and the Hundred-item Psychological Symptoms Questionnaire. The differences in parenting styles between fathers and mothers, as well as their correlations with children's psychological symptoms, were analyzed and compared. Results:​ Statistically significant differences were observed between fathers and mothers in the following dimensions: Democracy-Autocracy (t=2.099, P=0.036), Respect-Humiliation (t=4.953, P=0.000), Care-Protectiveness (t=-3.697, P=0.000), and Expectation-Demandingness (t=35.238, P=0.000). Correlation analysis showed no significant association between the difference in the parental Expectation-Demandingness factor and psychological problems in children and adolescents (P>0.05). However, differences in other parental factors were significantly correlated with psychological problems in this population (r=0.106–0.265, P<0.05 or P<0.01). Conclusion:​ Inconsistent parenting styles between fathers and mothers have a certain impact on the mental health of adolescents.

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