DescriptionChronically ill youth experience higher rates of psychological problems, in particular, depression. In healthy youth, parenting behaviors including discipline, rejection, control aversiveness, withdrawal and over-involvement as well as lower levels of support and warmth are important risk factors for the development of depressive symptoms and disorders. However, generally there is a lack of research examining whether parenting behaviors predict depressive symptoms in youth with chronic illnesses. Some cross sectional research indicates that acceptance, support, warmth and criticism relate to levels of depressive symptoms. Yet, there is a dearth of longitudinal studies examining the relationship between parenting and depressive symptoms in chronically ill youth and many studies do not include a non-medically ill sample. In addition, parenting behaviors have largely been assessed using self-report measures and definitions of parenting behaviors vary widely across studies, limiting our understanding of these relationships. The current study examined whether parenting behaviors longitudinally predict depressive symptoms in chronically ill and healthy youth. The study also assessed whether health status moderates the effects of parenting behaviors on youth depressive symptoms. Parenting behaviors were observed in 295 parent-child dyads, 55 of whom had chronic illnesses. Self-reported depressive symptoms were assessed longitudinally over 12-months. Greater parental negative affect and conflict were predictive of higher depressive symptoms over time in chronically ill and healthy youth. Higher levels of parental positive affect and support predicted lower levels of depressive symptoms over time in healthy and chronically ill youth. Responsiveness and criticism did not relate to the emergence of depressive symptoms. No evidence was found suggesting that parenting behaviors differentially predict depressive symptoms in chronically ill youth compared to healthy controls. Findings suggest that affectively related parenting behaviors (e.g., positive affect, negative affect) constitute a risk factor for the emergence of depressive symptoms in healthy and chronically ill youth. More research is needed to further elucidate these relationships, particularly in chronically ill youth.