Introduction. Parental styles and parental challenge have been widely studied as predictors of cognitive, emotional, behavioral and social development in adolescents. However, few studies have analyzed their relationship with virtuous intellectual character during the adolescent stage, and nonexistent are those that study the bidirectional effect between parental variables and virtuous intellectual character. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap. Method. A longitudinal panel study was conducted on a sample of 383 students from six secondary schools in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Two separate sessions were conducted 1 year apart. The variables were assessed using the Argentine Parenting Styles Questionnaire for Adolescents, developed by Richaud (2005), the Parental Challenge Questionnaire by Dailey (2008), and the Virtuous Intellectual Character Scale (VICS) by Mesurado & Vanney (2024). Results. Cross-lag panel analyses were conducted, revealing a bidirectional effect between the accepting parenting style and virtuous intellectual character (β = .11, p < .05), as well as a unidirectional effect of parental challenge as a predictor of virtuous intellectual character (β = .18, p < .001). Conclusions. These results reflect the important role parents play in the development of intellectual virtues in adolescents. Parents who adopt an accepting parenting style and encourage parental challenge in their relationships with their children are likely to foster a more virtuous intellectual character. This approach nurtures children who are more motivated to learn by being curious and intellectually autonomous and more effective in achieving learning goals by being open-minded to others' ideas, attentive to the present moment of learning, and careful and methodical in acquiring knowledge.