What are sociolegal, cultural, and emotional premises beneath conceptualizations of parenting skills for parents of juvenile offenders? This study examined court-ordered parenting skills classes taught by juvenile probation department personnel at a Northern California juvenile detention facility. Three conflicting perspectives arose in the classes: the juvenile court's perspective, where delinquency was framed as a result of poor parenting that state intervention could rectify; the parents' perspective, where parenting was seen as part of the feeling world of family life; and an adult solidarity perspective, where probation officials and parents agreed that youths were bad, out of control, disrespectful—a type of demonization of the youths by all the adults.
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