Many African parents yell or shout at their teenagers. A new longitudinal study has found that using such harsh verbal discipline in early adolescence can be harmful to teens later. Instead of minimising teens’ problematic behaviour, harsh verbal discipline may actually aggravate it.
The study, from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Michigan, appears in the journal Child Development.
Harsh verbal discipline happens when parents use psychological force to cause a child to experience emotional pain or discomfort in an effort to correct or control behaviour. It can vary in severity from yelling and shouting at a child to insulting and using words to humiliate. Many parents shift from physical to verbal discipline as their children enter adolescence, and harsh verbal discipline is not uncommon.
Few studies have looked at harsh verbal discipline in adolescence. This study found that when parents use it in early adolescence, teens suffer detrimental outcomes later. The children of mothers and fathers who used harsh verbal discipline when they were 13 suffered more depressive symptoms between ages 13 and 14 than their peers who weren’t disciplined in this way; they were also more likely to have conduct problems such as misbehaving at school, lying to parents, stealing, or fighting.
Moreover, the study found that not only does harsh verbal discipline appear to be ineffective at addressing behaviour problems in youths; it actually appears to increase such behaviours. Parents’ hostility increases the risk of delinquency by lowering inhibition and fostering anger, irritability, and belligerence in adolescents, the researchers found.
“This is one of the first studies to indicate that parents’ harsh verbal discipline is damaging to the developing adolescent,” says Ming-Te Wang, assistant professor of psychology in education at the University of Pittsburgh, who led the study. “The notion that harsh discipline is without consequence, once there is a strong parent-child bond — that the adolescent will understand that ‘they’re doing this because they love me’ — is misguided because parents’ warmth didn’t lessen the effects of harsh verbal discipline.
“Indeed, harsh verbal discipline appears to be detrimental in all circumstances,” Wang concludes.
Wang suggests that parents who want to modify their teenage children’s behaviour would do better by discussing with them their concerns about the consequences of the behaviour. The study’s findings can inform parenting programmes so that parents can learn alternatives to shouting and insulting their teens.
