Parental self-efficacy (PSE) is defined as parents' beliefs about their abilities to influence their children in a way that fosters their children's positive development. Research has shown links among PSE, parenting, and children's behavior (Jones & Prinz, 2005), but there are still questions concerning the associations over time. Theory predicts 3 types of processes relevant to these associations: a PSE-driven process, a parent-behavior-driven process, and a child-driven process. In this study, we tested these processes during early to middle adolescence using reports from 401 parents (286 mothers, 115 fathers) from 305 families, and their adolescents (Mage = 11.5 years), at 3 time points. Cross-lagged panel models were used to examine the associations among PSE, promotive parenting practices, and adolescents' externalizing. Results supported a PSE-driven process for mothers within early adolescence. In addition, evidence for parent-behavior-driven and child-driven processes emerged at different times within this developmental period.

Parental self-efficacy (PSE) describes parents' beliefs about being able to handle developmentally specific issues and being able to influence their child in a way that fosters the child's positive development and adjustment (Bandura, 1997). Parents of adolescents have been shown to feel less efficacious than parents of preadolescent children (Ballenski & Cook, 1982), but little is known about the factors behind low levels of PSE among parents of adolescents. This study examined mean-level changes in PSE and predictors of change among parents of adolescents. The sample was derived from a 3-wave longitudinal data set of 398 parents of children starting spanning early (11 or 12 years) to middle (14 or 15 years) adolescence (47% boys). Latent growth curve analysis was performed, and it was hypothesized that theoretically driven predictors reflecting the developing child, as well as the ecological context, would predict the level of PSE. Despite generally high levels of PSE across all time points, parents decreased in PSE during the developmental period. Some predictors were of particular importance for the level and amount of change in PSE, such as physical changes in the child, parents' target-based expectations for risk taking during adolescence, the quality of parent-adolescent communication, and ethnicity. This study adds insight into the development of PSE during the critical transitional period of early and middle adolescence. The findings advance theory of PSE, as it illuminates why some parents' decrease in PSE more than do other parents.

What function does parental self-efficacy have for parenting behaviors and children’s adjustment, and what explains individual variations in parents’ self-efficacy? Parental self-efficacy involves parents’ beliefs about their influence on their children and this systematic review presents results from 35 empirical studies published between 2003 and 2022 among parents of school-aged children and adolescents. First, the studies in this review show a bi-directional association between parental self-efficacy and positive parenting, and some empirical evidence that parental self-efficacy influences children indirectly, via parenting. The few longitudinal studies examining associations between parental self-efficacy and child behaviors suggest that self-efficacy might emerge as a reaction to children’s behaviors. Second, many child, parent, and sociocultural factors were shown to predict parental self-efficacy (e.g., child gender and age, parents’ psychological well-being, and socio-economic status), and results suggest that these associations are similar across multiple countries and age groups. Finally, studies reporting on parental self-efficacy at different time points or a correlation between self-efficacy and the child’s age suggested that parental self-efficacy decreases over the school-age and adolescent period. This review shows the complex role of parental self-efficacy in associations with parent and child factors, and it also highlight questions to address for future research.

The internet constitutes an important platform for parents to find information. How online information searching is linked to parental self-efficacy (PSE)—defined as parents’ perceptions about their abilities to have a positive impact on their children—is still unknown. This two-wave study examined cross-lagged associations between PSE and parents’ online information searching, as well as the prospective effect of perceived information overload on PSE and online information searching. Moreover, we examined whether these associations differed depending on the online context (governmental-run or nongovernmental-run websites). We used a sample of 214 parents of children (equal number of boys and girls) <4 years (85% of the parents were mothers and 93% were born in Sweden), who completed an online survey twice, 1 year apart. The results showed that parents who felt more efficacious at T1 reported a decrease in online information searching over time. The frequency of parents online searching, however, did not predict changes in PSE. In addition, the effects of information overload depended on the type of websites parents used. Among parents who used both types of websites to search for information, higher information overload was linked with increases in information searching and decreases in PSE over time. The results suggest that perceptions of low self-efficacy and feelings of overload might motivate parents to use the internet more to search for information.

Parenting and parent–child relationships in Western countries have undergone notable changes over recent decades. Parents today generally spend more time with their children and use less harsh discipline compared to parents over 50 years ago. Less is known about trends in parental beliefs over this time period. In this study, we examined differences in parental self-efficacy (PSE) between parents of young adolescents from two samples, one collected in 1999/2000 and one in 2014. We focused specifically on PSE concerning children’s school adjustment and other behaviors outside the home. Results showed that although the meaning of PSE was the same at both time points (i.e., the latent PSE factor showed equivalence across the samples), parents in the 2014 sample reported significantly lower levels of PSE than did parents in the 1999/2000 sample. This difference contrasts with trends concerning parenting practices and is discussed in relation to societal changes over this time period, such as changes in expectations and societal pressure on parents, and in technology, including social media. This study adds to research on trends in parenting, suggesting that parents in Western countries feel less efficacious in promoting certain positive behaviors among young adolescents compared to parents 15 years ago.