Characterizing the Association between Delinquency and Parenting Practices Across Adolescence: Longitudinal Associations and the Role of Genetic Liability

Background: Parenting practices are a potential mechanism through which adolescent delinquent behavior can be modified. However, it remains unclear whether associations between parenting and delinquency reflect stable differences between families or dynamic processes unfolding within families over time. The current study disentangled the between- and within-person associations between delinquency and parenting across adolescence and whether genetic propensity toward externalizing, indexed by a polygenic score (EXT PGS), was associated with stable between-person differences in delinquency and parenting Methods: Participants were 2,184 adolescents assessed annually from ages 12 to 17 as part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development- Social Development sub-study. Parents and youth reported on delinquency and parenting dimensions (corporal punishment, inconsistent discipline, poor monitoring, positive parenting). Random-intercept cross-lagged panel models separated between-person and within-person associations. We evaluated the association between the EXT PGS and the random intercepts. Results: Between-persons, adolescents with higher average delinquency experienced higher average levels of corporal punishment, inconsistent discipline, and poor monitoring and lower positive parenting. EXT PGS was associated with higher levels of delinquency and with higher corporal punishment, inconsistent discipline, and poor monitoring, as well as lower youth-reported positive parenting and accounted for approximately 4%–8% of variance shared between delinquency and parenting. Within-person, higher delinquency was associated with subsequent increases in youth-reported corporal punishment, but not parent-reported corporal punishment. Reciprocal associations emerged between delinquency and poor monitoring in both parent- and youth-report models and between delinquency and youth-reported inconsistent discipline. No longitudinal associations emerged between positive parenting and delinquency.Conclusions: Associations between parenting and delinquency reflected both stable individual differences and dynamic developmental processes. The EXT PGS contributed to stable differences in delinquency and parenting, while longitudinal associations varied across parenting dimensions. These findings suggest that a focus on decreasing inconsistent discipline and increasing parental monitoring may be particularly relevant for mitigating delinquency.