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War and Family Life pp 123–144Cite as

Parenting Styles in Military and Civilian Families with Adolescents: The Impact of Deployment, Mood, and Marital Satisfaction

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Part of the book series: Risk and Resilience in Military and Veteran Families ((RRMV))

Abstract

US Military personnel and their families have been coping with repeated combat deployments for almost 15 years. The impact of this ongoing stress on parental and child psychological health has been documented, but little is known of the impact of repeated combat deployments on parenting behaviors, particularly among parents of adolescents. This chapter reports on the findings of a study examining parenting styles among military and civilian parents as well as the potential impact of deployment stress on parenting. Data from online surveys completed by 316 mothers of children aged 12–18 were analyzed. Results indicated that military-connected mothers were more restrictive in their parenting than were the civilian mothers, and as a result a greater percentage of military-connected mothers were classified as Authoritarian (43 %) or Authoritative (24 %). Parenting style variables were not related to the number of deployments, total time deployed, or percent of career time deployed. However, they were related to demographic characteristics of the sample including age, years in the current home, and number of moves experienced during the child’s life. Unexpectedly, parenting variables among the military-connected were not related to measures of depression, anxiety, stress and marital satisfaction. However, these variables were significantly related to parenting style among the civilian participants. Findings are discussed with a focus on the need for additional research into the potential positive and negative impact of differing parenting styles on the adjustment of military families and children as they cope with deployments and other stresses common to military life.

This chapter is the work of the authors and does not represent the position of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Department of Defense or the Henry M. Jackson Foundation. This chapter reports data from a study completed by the first author as a dissertation in the Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Major Speck died during the preparation of this manuscript and the work was completed by the second author.*Author was deceased at the time of publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Major Kimberly A. Speck Ph.D. & David S. Riggs Ph.D.

  2. Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA

    David S. Riggs Ph.D.

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  1. Major Kimberly A. Speck Ph.D.
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development & Family Studies, Purdue University, Military Family Research Institute, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

    Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth

  2. Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

    David S. Riggs

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Speck, M.K.A., Riggs, D.S. (2016). Parenting Styles in Military and Civilian Families with Adolescents: The Impact of Deployment, Mood, and Marital Satisfaction. In: MacDermid Wadsworth, S., Riggs, D. (eds) War and Family Life. Risk and Resilience in Military and Veteran Families. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21488-7_7

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