This study investigated two nonintellectual factors that may partly explain the relation between parenting and academic achievement-sons' self-restraint and emotional adjustment-in a sample of 85 sixth-grade boys. Results of multiple regression techniques indicated that sons' reports of mothers' harsh and inconsistent discipline were related both directly and negatively to sons' classroom grades and indirectly via sons' global distress and low cognitive self-worth. Fathers' harsh and inconsistent discipline was related only indirectly to sons' grades by way of its independent association with sons' distress and low self-restraint. In general, these results were replicated when standardized test scores were substituted into the model. These findings underscore the critical contribution of social and emotional development to academic and intellectual achievements, and the key role of parent-child relationships in influencing such development.
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