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Pakistan Journal of Mental Health

Original Article

PARENTAL CARE, OVERPROTECTION AND DELINQUENCY AMONG

ADOLESCENTS

Hina Ali Lonea*

a
The Star Institute, Gujranwala

*Correspondence to: Ms. Hina Ali Lone, The Star Institute, Gujranwala, Pakistan. E-mail: shines4h@gmail.com

KEYWORDS ABSTRACT
Parental Care, Parental
Overprotection, Delinquency, The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between parental care,
Gender overprotection, and delinquency among adolescents. A sample of 200 adolescents
was selected with an age range of 16 to 18 years from Gujranwala, Pakistan. The
CITE THIS ARTICLE: Parental Bonding Questionnaire and Self-Report Delinquency Scale were used in
Lone, H. A. (2025). Parental care, the study. The data was analysed by SPSS version 27, by using descriptive and
overprotection and delinquency inferential statistics that were computed. Results revealed that parental care was
among adolescents. Pakistan significantly negatively related to delinquency, whereas parental overprotection
Journal of Mental Health, 2(1), 11-
15.
was significantly positively related to delinquency among adolescents. On
investigating gender differences, it was found that male adolescents show a higher
level of delinquency as compared to female adolescents.

I. INTRODUCTION
Parents have a lot of influence on their children, and they mold their children's behavior into adults' behavior.
Parental control has a great impact on their children. According to the concept of Schaefer (1959), “parental
demandingness and responsiveness” can be described as the three types of parenting styles. Parents set
regulations for their children and expect them to obey in the way they want. In parenting, responsiveness is an
essential aspect from the emotional perspective. Children reared in the three distinct parenting contexts have
been found to have varying results. Adolescents who described their parents as authoritative, according to
Steinberg, there were similarities between adolescents from authoritative and authoritarian households. But their
"self-reliance and social competence" were lacking whereas delinquency was common (Goering & Mrug, 2021).
Similar findings were made by Sun et al. (2024). They enumerated the traits of parents linked to the development
of antisocial personalities in kids, which are linked to problematic conduct. They found that the most important
characteristics in predicting teenage delinquency were rejection, loss of emotional support, lack of supervision,
and lack of discipline.

The results of a significant pair of studies published in the fields of developmental psychology (Kerr & Stattin, 2000)
and child development (Stattin & Kerr, 2000) challenged a number of widely accepted beliefs about how to best
operationalize a number of important parenting behaviors and whether or not they are associated with teenage
problem behavior. Three of these publications' conclusions stand out in particular. First, research showing
connections between parental monitoring and markers of problem behavior in adolescents has tended to confuse
the degree to which parents participate in activities intended to gather information about their children's activities,
whereabouts, and associates (i.e., parental monitoring), according to Stattin and Kerr (2000). When adolescent

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Hina Ali Lone

disclosure, parental solicitation, and parental control were all taken into account at the same time as predictors of
adolescent involvement in problem behavior, Stattin and Kerr (2000) found that the strongest effect was for
disclosure, with higher levels of disclosure linked to lower levels of problem behavior. While parental solicitation
was associated with greater, not less, engagement in problem conduct, higher degrees of parental control were
also associated with lower levels of problem behavior among teenagers (implying that parents ask misbehaving
adolescents for information more frequently). These effects persisted even after adjusting for the quality of
parent-child connections, and they differed somewhat based on whether adolescent or parental accounts were
taken into account (Gurdal & Sorbring, 2024).

Compared to women, men are more likely to engage in delinquent conduct. The fact that males and females may
have different etiologies for misbehavior is one reason why males have a greater rate of delinquency than girls.
Males may be more susceptible than girls to delinquency risk factors, including poor parenting. According to
another theory, males are more exposed to risk factors than females, but the risk factors for delinquency are the
same for both sexes (Moffitt et al., 2011). There are few and conflicting studies on how sex differences affect the
relationship between familial variables and delinquency. While some research indicates that boys place greater
importance on the family, others discover relatively few sex differences in family risk factors of delinquency
(Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986), while yet others claim larger impacts of parenting characteristics in females
(e.g., Nye, 1958). To assist explain theoretical and empirical differences, the current meta-analysis compares
research on males and females.

Adolescent engagement in problem conduct is also probably closely related to parental supervision and
overprotection. Regardless of whether such attempts lead to full and correct parental awareness, children should
be less likely to participate in activities that their parents disapprove of when parents make an effort to know
where they are and what they are doing. This anticipation contrasts with the results that Stattin and Kerr (2000)
reported. This is in line with a broader body of research that links monitoring to reduced levels of misbehavior
(Laird et al., 2003), but Kerr and Stattin (2000) found that higher levels of monitoring were associated with
increased teenage engagement in problem behavior. Higher degrees of parental supervision over their kids'
friends and activities should have a clear negative impact on delinquency and substance abuse. In light of this, the
model depicted in Figure 1 permits direct effects of supervision and management on delinquency in teenagers
who exhibit problematic conduct. The conceptual framework of the study is shown in Figure 1, the relationship of
parental care and overprotection with delinquency in adolescents. In the light of previous research, the conceptual
framework of the present study has been formulated.

Figure 1: The association between parental care, parental overprotection and delinquency among adolescents

Parental Care
- Delinquency
+
Parental
Overprotection

II. METHOD
Participants
The sample of the present study consisted of adolescents (N = 200). Both male adolescents (n = 90, 45%) and
females (n = 110, 55%) were included in the sample. Purposive sampling technique was used. The age range of the
sample was 15 to 17 years (M = 16.00, SD = 4.23). Education of the participants was from intermediate to
graduation.

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Hina Ali Lone

Measures
Parental Bonding Instruments (Parker et al., 1979) were used to measure the parental influence on adolescents. It
has two scales, including a parental care subscale and a parental control or overprotection subscale. These
subscales measure basic parental styles as perceived by the participant. It is completed separately for both
mothers and fathers. The scale consists of 25 items, including parental care and parental overprotection. It is a
four-point Likert-type scale with response categories including 0 for “very unlike,” 1 for “moderately unlike,” 2 for
“moderately like,” and 3 for “very like.”. Alpha reliability of the scale was satisfactory. The Self-Reported
Delinquency Scale (Naqvi, 2007) was used to measure delinquency among adolescents. This is a five-point Likert
scale with 27 items and response categories including 1 for “never,” 2 for “once a time,” 3 for “two to five times,”
4 for “two to five times,” and 5 for “more than ten times.”. The scale has good reliability.

Procedure
Data were collected from different colleges of Gujranwala. Participants were approached during working hours;
that is why dual informed consent, both from the head of the institutions and from participants, took place by the
researcher. They were assured about the confidentiality and anonymity of the research. They were also ensured
that information given by them will be used only for research purpose. Then questionnaires were handed over to
the participants. After filling the questionnaires, the researcher collected the questionnaires and thanked to the
participants. After data collection, the data was computed in SPSS version 27. For conducting an analysis to study
the relationship between parental care, parental overprotection, and delinquency, a Pearson correlation analysis
was carried out. To see gender differences in study variables, an independent sample t-test was applied.

III. RESULTS
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics and Pearson Correlation among all Study Variables
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
*** *** *** *** ***
1. Mother care - .38 .78 -.32 -.29 -.34 -.23**
2. Father care - .87*** -.40*** -.43*** -.45*** -.15
3. Parental care - -.43*** -.43*** -.49*** -.18*
4. Mother overprotection/control - .58*** .87*** .17
5. Father overprotection/control - .90*** .03
6. Parental overprotection/control - .09
7. Delinquency -
M 9.93 10.43 19.94 23.40 23.83 47.18 11.55
SD 4.90 6.15 9.09 5.75 6.27 10.93 10.76
α .86 .72 .75 .71 .76 .81 .74
*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

Table 1 shows the mean, standard deviation, alpha reliability, and Pearson correlation among all study variables.
Alpha reliability of the scales and subscales ranged from 0.70 to 0.86, indicating that all the scales and their
subscales have satisfactory alpha reliability, and they were reliable for use. Results revealed that mother care has
significant positive relationship with father care r (118) = .38, p < .001, parental care r (118) = .78, p < .001, and
significant negative relationship with mother control r = -.32, p < .001, father control r (118) = -.29, p < .001,
parental control r (118) = -.34, p < .001 and delinquency r (118) = -.23, p < .01. Father care has significant positive
relationship with parental care r = .87, p < .001 and significant negative relationship mother control r (118) = -.40, p
< .001), father control r (118) = -.43, p < .001 and parental control r (118) = -.45, p < .001. Father care has non-
significant relationship with delinquency r (118) = -.15, p > .05. Parental care has significant negative relationship
with mother control with r (118) = -.43, p < .001, father control r (118) = -.43, p < .001, parental control r (118) = -
.49, p < .001 and delinquency r (118) = -.18, p < .05. Mother control has significant positive relationship with father
control r (118) = .58, p < .001, and parental control r (118) = .87, p < .001 whereas non-significant relationship with
delinquency r (118) = .17, p > .05. Father control has significant positive relationship with parental control r (118)
= .90, p < .001 whereas non-significant relationship with delinquency r (118) = .03, p > .05.

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Table 2: Gender Differences in Study Variables

Males Females
Variables M SD M SD t(198) Cohen’s d
Mother care 10.35 5.01 9.39 4.76 .94 --
Father care 11.90 6.31 8.46 5.39 2.81* .59
Parental care 21.70 9.12 22.40 5.39 2.13* .09
Mother control 24.81 6.01 23.17 6.27 1.97* .27
Father control 23.17 6.27 24.70 6.23 1.16 --
Parental control 45.62 10.77 49.38 10.92 1.54 --
Delinquency 15.74 11.93 6.04 5.39 4.83** 1.02
*p < .05, **p < .01

Table 2 shows gender differences in all study variables. Results indicate significant mean differences on father care
with t (198) = 2.81, p < .05, parental care with t (198) = 2.13, p < .05, mother control with t (198) = 1.97, p < .05,
and delinquency with t (198) = 4.83, p < .01. Findings are non-significant on mother care with t (198) = .81, p > .05;
father control with t (198) = 1.16, p > .05; and parental control with t (198) = 1.54, p > .05.

IV. DISCUSSION
It was supported by the results that parental care has a negative relationship with delinquency among adolescents
with behavioral problems. The positive parental behavior results in good mental health and low delinquency.
Negative behavior such as neglect, rejection, and hostility is associated with delinquency. Adolescents who
experience rejection and poor support from their parents are at high risk of slanted mental health problems and
that is why they exhibit more delinquent behavior (Rohner, 2004; Zhao et al., 2023). Factors such as parental
discipline, inconsistent and harsh parental attitude, poor supervision, and weak parent-child relationships are
contributing elements to enhanced delinquency among juveniles and adults (Barnes and Farrell, 1992; Mak, 1994).
Parental control and overprotection were also relatively linked to delinquency in the past research
(Suarez‐Morales & Torres, 2021; Sun et al., 2024). Parental control and monitoring have three indicators, including
parental knowledge regarding childcare, the active tracking of the child’s whereabouts, and linking delinquency.
But in the present research, it was seen that most of the parents were illiterate or had a lack of parental
knowledge and tracing of children and adolescents’ behavior; that is why no relationship was found between
parental control and delinquency.

The association between parental knowledge and delinquency can be explained in terms of how much the child
discloses himself. Actual monitoring by parents is probably limited because adolescents spend less time with their
parents and are relatively autonomous (Donker et al., 2021; Stattin & Kerr, 2000). Therefore, the link between
parental control and delinquency is weaker. As data was collected from urban area i.e. Gujranwala city, where
parents do not provide strict control to their children but in the context of collectivistic culture some other factors
like poverty, unemployment, demerits, injustices etc. are more strongly associated with delinquency. Therefore,
the second hypothesis was not proved by the results. Gender also plays an important role in delinquency. The
present study investigated gender differences with respect to delinquency. This higher level of delinquency in
males is also due to some etiological differences in males and females. Boys were doing violent offenses more than
boys (Chesney-Lind & Paramore, 2001; Shulman et al., 2021), whereas female-reported sexual assault accounted
for 68%. These are consistent with the prior research evidence that males reported a high level of self-reported
delinquency and females were more likely to sexually assault (McDaniel & Rodriguez, 2021).

V. CONCLUSION
The findings of the study revealed that mother care and parental care were negatively related to
delinquency. Father care and overprotection were not related to delinquency. Gender differences indicated
that males were higher on delinquency than female participants.

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Hina Ali Lone

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
The author received no funding from any organizations.

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Pakistan Journal of Mental Health, 2025, Vol 2(1), 11-15