As parents, we’ve all been there: your child breaks a rule, and you’re faced with a decision about how to respond. Do you come down hard with punishment, hoping to prevent future misbehavior? Or do you take a softer approach, explaining why the rule matters? Research from Brazil suggests that harsh discipline might actually backfire, not just in the moment, but in ways that echo throughout adolescence and beyond.

The Discipline Dilemma

My colleagues and I followed 800 Brazilian students from age 11 to 14, tracking how their parents’ disciplinary styles shaped their attitudes toward authority and their tendency to break rules. What we discovered challenges some common assumptions about parenting.

The study asked adolescents about their parents’ disciplinary practices. We also measured whether these young people saw their parents (and other authority figures like teachers and police) as legitimate—that is, as people who have the right to make rules and deserve to be obeyed. Finally, we tracked whether they engaged in rule-violating behaviors.

The results were striking: harsh discipline didn’t prevent rule-violating behavior. In fact, it undermined parents’ authority in their children’s eyes.

Why Harsh Discipline Falls Short

Here’s what we found: when parents frequently yelled, threatened, or used physical punishment, their adolescent children were less likely to see them as legitimate authorities. And this loss of legitimacy mattered. Adolescents who didn’t view their parents as legitimate were significantly more likely to break rules, even when those parents maintained strict discipline.

In contrast, simply having clear rules was associated with children viewing their parents as more legitimate. And crucially, this sense of parental legitimacy was the strongest predictor of whether adolescents complied with rules.

Think of it this way: harsh discipline might get temporary compliance out of fear, but it doesn’t build the internal sense that “my parents have the right to set these boundaries, and I should respect them.” That internal sense—what we call legitimacy—is what leads to lasting cooperation.

The Missing Link: Procedural Justice

But why does harsh discipline erode legitimacy? The answer is procedural justice, which means making decisions and enforcing rules fairly.

When parents use procedural justice, they:

• Give their children a chance to explain their side of the story
• Explain why they’re being reprimanded
• Listen before making decisions
• Speak politely, even when disciplining

Our research found that adolescents whose parents practiced procedural justice were far more likely to see them as legitimate authorities. In fact, procedural justice was the main pathway through which parenting practices influenced whether kids viewed their parents’ authority as valid.

Harsh discipline, by contrast, violates these principles. When parents yell, threaten, or punish without explanation, children don’t feel heard or respected. They may obey in the moment out of fear, but they don’t internalize the lesson or respect the authority behind it.

A Fully Mediated Relationship

Our statistical analysis revealed that perceived legitimacy fully mediated the relationship between parental discipline and rule-violating behavior.

This means that parental discipline doesn’t directly influence whether adolescents break rules. Instead, discipline affects how kids think their parents are, and that determines whether they’ll follow the rules. It’s not about the strictness of the punishment, it’s about whether children believe their parents have the right to set those boundaries in the first place.

This finding flips conventional wisdom on its head. Many parents assume that stricter, harsher discipline will deter misbehavior. But our research suggests that what really matters is whether your approach to discipline helps your children see you as a fair and legitimate authority.

Beyond the Family: A Ripple Effect

Perhaps most importantly, we found that how adolescents view their parents’ legitimacy doesn’t just affect their behavior at home—it shapes their attitudes toward all authority figures. Young people who saw their parents as legitimate also tended to view teachers and police as more legitimate. Those who experienced harsh, unfair discipline at home were more cynical about authority across the board.

This makes sense when you consider that the parent-child relationship is children’s first experience with authority. It becomes a template for how they understand power and rules throughout their lives. If that first experience teaches them that authority is arbitrary, unfair, and based on force rather than legitimacy, those lessons carry forward into their interactions with teachers, police, and eventually their own children.

A Brazilian Context, A Universal Message

We conducted this research in São Paulo, Brazil—a city marked by significant inequality and frequent police violence. You might wonder whether findings from this context apply elsewhere.

In fact, the Brazilian setting makes our findings even more powerful. If procedural justice and legitimacy matter in a context where harsh treatment by authority figures is relatively common, they likely matter even more in contexts where expectations for fair treatment are higher. The basic principle appears to be universal: people—including children—are more likely to cooperate with authority when they believe that authority is legitimate and treats them fairly.

What Parents Can Do

So what’s the takeaway for parents? Here are some practical implications:

Focus on fairness over harshness. When your child breaks a rule, resist the urge to immediately escalate to yelling or threats. Instead, think about how to handle the situation fairly.

Explain, don’t just punish. Help your child understand why a rule exists and why their behavior was problematic. This builds understanding rather than just compliance.

Listen before deciding. Give your child a chance to explain what happened from their perspective. Even if you ultimately decide they were wrong, the fact that you listened matters.

Be consistent with clear rules. Our research showed that simply having clear parental rules was associated with greater legitimacy. Consistency and clarity help children understand boundaries.

Remember that respect goes both ways. You want your children to respect your authority, but that respect is earned through fair treatment, not demanded through force.

The Long View

Parenting is exhausting, and in the heat of the moment, harsh discipline can feel like the fastest way to restore order. But our research suggests this approach comes with hidden costs that accumulate over time. Each instance of unfair treatment chips away at your legitimacy in your child’s eyes, making future cooperation less likely.

The good news? You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be consistently fair. When you make decisions thoughtfully, explain your reasoning, and treat your children with respect you build a foundation of legitimacy that makes everything else easier.

That foundation doesn’t just make your life as a parent easier right now. It shapes how your children will understand and interact with authority for the rest of their lives. In that sense, choosing procedural justice over harsh discipline isn’t just about preventing tonight’s argument. It’s about investing in the kind of adults your children will become.

Herbert Rodrigues is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Gerontology at Missouri State University. His research focuses on youth development, legal socialization, and juvenile delinquency, with particular attention to how young people from marginalized communities form attitudes toward authority and law. His work has appeared in the Journal of Research on Adolescence, British Journal of Criminology, International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, and Social Justice Research.