Parental control, a focus in much of the parenting research over the past 50 years, involves pushes or pressures for children to think, feel, or behave in specific ways. Based on the view that when parents communicate in controlling ways, they undermine their children's ability to initiate their own actions and induce them to behave because of external or internal pressures, this book is intended to provide an understanding of parental control, its meaning, its determinants, and its consequences. The book examines the concept of parental control and discusses what research has found about the effects of control on children's development. The book also discusses specific ways parents exert control, examines the effects of control on various goals parents have for their children, examines autonomy support, and explores how parents can implement autonomy-supportive parenting in the realms of school, sports, and social activities. Following an introduction, the chapters are: (1) "The Concept of Control"; (2) "Fulfilling Children's Needs: The Self-Determination View"; (3) "The Complexity of Control: Disentangling Parenting Dimensions"; (4) "Overt and Covert Control"; (5) "Differentiating the Effects of Control: Compliance versus Internalization"; (6) "Control in Context"; (7) "What Makes Parents Controlling: Pressure from Above and Below"; (8) "What Makes Parents Controlling: Pressure from Within"; (9) "Control and Academics"; (10) "Control and Sports"; and (11) "Conclusions." (Contains 286 references.) (KB)