structural:expansion, information:highlighting, quality:corruption, stylistic:style_transfer
Parent – child

In ancient times, parent – child relationships were often marked by fear, either of rebellion or abandonment, resulting in the strict filial roles in, for example, ancient Rome and China. Freud conceived of the Oedipal complex, the supposed obsession that young boys have towards their mothers and the accompanying fear and rivalry with their fathers, and the Electra complex, in which the young girl feels that her mother has castrated her and therefore becomes obsessed with her father. Freud's ideas influenced thought on parent – child relationships for decades.

Another early conception of parent–child relationships was that love only existed as a biological drive for survival and comfort on the child's part. In 1958, however, Harry Harlow 's study " The Hot Wire Mother'' comparing rhesus' reactions to wire surrogate "mothers" and cloth "mothers" demonstrated that affection was wanted by any caregiver and not only the surrogate mothers.

The study laid the groundwork for Mary Ainsworth 's attachment theory, showing how the infants used their cloth "mothers" as a secure base from which to explore. In a series of studies using the strange situation, a scenario in which an infant is separated from then reunited with the parent, Ainsworth defined three styles of parent-child relationship.

Secure attachments are linked to better social and academic outcomes and greater moral internalization as research proposes the idea that parent-child relationships play a key role in the developing morality of young children. Secure attachments are also linked to less delinquency for children, and have been found to predict later relationship success.

For most of the late nineteenth through the twentieth century, the perception of adolescent-parent relationships was that of a time of upheaval. G. Stanley Hall popularized the "Sturm und drang", or storm and stress, model of adolescence. Psychological research has painted a much tamer picture. Although adolescents are more risk-seeking and emerging adults have higher suicide rates, they are largely less volatile and have much better relationships with their parents than the storm and stress model would suggest Early adolescence often marks a decline in parent-child relationship quality, which then re-stabilizes through adolescence, and relationships are sometimes better in late adolescence than prior to its onset. With the increasing average age at marriage and more youths attending college and living with parents past their teens, the concept of a new period called emerging adulthood gained popularity. This is considered a period of uncertainty and experimentation between adolescence and adulthood. During this stage, interpersonal relationships are considered to be more self-focused, and relationships with parents may still be influential.