The Impact of Parental Parenting Styles on High School Students' Coping Strategies

Abstract

Contemporary high school students encounter multilayered academic, interpersonal, and developmental pressures, and their psychological coping responses to stress are profoundly shaped by long-term parental parenting styles. This study examines how distinct parenting approaches influence the coping strategy selection of adolescents. Authoritative parenting fosters active, problem-oriented coping behaviors in adolescents, whereas strict parenting tends to trigger avoidant or impulsive confrontational coping. Permissive and neglectful parenting lead to insufficient coping resources and unstable emotional management capacity. Existing research confirms that parenting styles affect adolescents' stress cognition and coping strategy selection through three core mechanisms: emotional modeling, cognitive guidance, and parent-child relational atmosphere. Individual adolescent temperament, peer relationships, school environment, and cultural background act as critical moderating variables that adjust the strength of this influence. From the perspective of school mental health education, family parenting factors must be incorporated into daily psychological support work. Educators and parents should jointly shift parenting concepts from result-oriented to process-oriented, which provides theoretical support for integrated home-school psychological guidance and improves adolescents' psychological resilience. The findings underscore the importance of collaborative efforts between families and schools in cultivating adaptive coping skills among high school students, ultimately contributing to their overall well-being and academic success.