Exploration in the Association of Authoritative Parenting and Adolescent’s Success in a Junior College Honors Program

The presented study examines authoritative parenting and its associations with an adolescent's success. There is a significant gap in the knowledge in regard to the impact of parental tough love on adolescents. It is important to determine the answer to the problem because it could help fill the significant gap in the knowledge. This research will help determine if an authoritative parenting style is effective in making an adolescent successful. It can help a parent decide how to or not to raise their children. The evidence found in this study can also be used to help inform parents of the positive and negative outcomes of authoritative parenting and whether it is the best parenting style to use. In addition, it could also be used to help expand on future studies including how members of the extended family's parental approach affect an adolescent's success. Findings from the study suggest how successful the theory of "parental tough love" is. I conducted this study to examine how authoritative parenting or parental tough love impacts adolescents. This study was done within the honors program at Tyler Junior College. I conducted a qualitative survey questionnaire. The survey was sent through email by the head of the honors department. No specific ethnicity, race, age, or gender was used. This study accomplished to determine the relationship between an authoritative parenting style and success related to academic performance, social and emotional outcomes, and performance outcomes in school activities. Based on this research I concluded that parental tough love or an authoritative parenting style nurtures successful adolescents. This study shows that kids raised by authoritative parents are more likely to become independent, self-reliant, socially accepted, academically successful, and well-behaved. They are less likely to report depression and anxiety, and less likely to engage in antisocial behavior. This style also results in kids who have better mental health overall.