Parenting Journal · Volume 1 · Issue 1 · Licensed source edition
Balancing boundaries: Observed parental autonomy support and psychological control in the context of parent‐adolescent interactions and adolescent depression
Originally published 2025-03-01 · Journal of Research on Adolescence
Wiley · DOI 10.1111/jora.70003 ↗
Editorial reading guide · Independence
How do supportive and controlling responses appear during planning or problem-solving conversations?
Autonomy support is studied in actual conversations as well as in adolescent reports. The contrast between observed and perceived interactions encourages careful listening and measurement rather than assuming one account tells the whole story.
Who was studied?
Dutch adolescents with depression and a comparison group, observed with parents in three interaction tasks.
Age / stage: Adolescence; mean ages approximately 15–16 years
Read with three questions
- How were autonomy support and psychological control coded from videos?
- How did observed and adolescent-reported parenting compare across tasks and groups?
- Why should clinical-group differences not be reduced to a simple judgment about a family?
Keep the limits in view
The clinical sample was small and observations were task-specific. Observed parenting did not differ significantly between groups; the study cannot establish that parenting caused depression or that an adolescent’s perceptions are invalid.
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Original authorship, publication date, journal and DOI are preserved. This issue’s TRICK placement and reading questions are editorial additions, not claims made by the original authors.
Wilma G M Wentholt; E H Alet Meurs; Loes H C Janssen; Lisanne A E M van Houtum; Mirjam C M Wever; Marieke S Tollenaar; Lenneke R A Alink; Bernet M Elzinga (2025). Balancing boundaries: Observed parental autonomy support and psychological control in the context of parent‐adolescent interactions and adolescent depression Journal of Research on Adolescence. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.70003
Permissions checked against the saved article notice; repository publication notices screened 2026-11-04. This is not a new peer-review decision. The source authors and publishers are not represented as endorsing this issue.