Studies conducted have indicated that, there is an association between parenting styles and delinquency. On this basis, delinquency can be generally defined as the failure of doing what is required by the law or norms in a society. In connection to this, examples of delinquent behaviors include; immorality, cheating, irresponsibility, alcoholism, cheating, stealing, and fighting (aggression). In this relation, researches have shown that harsh parenting styles like discipline practices are associated with worse results such as delinquency and aggression (Craig & Bushman, 2002). It is of importance to note that, the child’s complicated conducts influence parent’s punitive strategies leading to harsher and conflicting punishments and hence less participation of the parent in the child’s socialization. In this relation, this negative child-parent socialization strategy jeopardizes a child to delinquent behaviors that starts at their early teenage and persist far into the adulthood. On the other hand, studies have shown that children of single parents are at a higher risk of delinquent behaviors than those of both parents (Craig & Bushman, 2002).
On the basis of parenting styles, they are of different types which include; authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglecting. From these examples, parenting styles can be defined as patterns of approaches and conducts of parents towards their children which create a situation of parents’ behavior. A point worth noting is that, authoritative behaviors have positive influences on child’s conducts while all the others place a child at a better position for delinquent conducts (Mears & Field, 2002). On this basis, the parents lay down logical rules and guidelines for the children to follow; but they are not inflexible in their discipline bearing in mind that there can be exceptions to the rules. In this relation, parents discuss with their children on the way these rules will be followed and why as well as listening to their feeling about them. In this case, the parents will amend their rules if a logical reason for doing so is given by the children. Since the parents are always in control, children respect them and hence chances of them turning to delinquent behaviors are very minimal (Mears & Field, 2002).