Abstract

Arnon Topol Oseary

The issue of “parental authority” has been the focus of social interest for many generations, however, in recent times, in light of the increasing violence and other abnormal phenomena among children and adolescents, it is gaining greater attention from the public. Due to the opacity around the concept’s essence, the goal of this article is to establish detailed and profound conceptualization for the construct of parental authority, while relying on relevant theoretical and empirical literature. Analysis of the concept has shown that it is a bi-dimensional theoretical construct (power and legitimacy), with its dimensions sharing four main aspects: (a) parental power: parental demandingness, and parental potential influence on the child’s behavior, (b) legitimate parental authority: the parent’s right to demand, and the child’s obligation to obey. Parental authority is expressed under parent-child conflict (disagreement), while its extant varies according to child’s age and the specific context in which it appears.