2-054 - Linking Parenting Styles and Child Behavior Problems in Diverse Cultural, Ethnic, and Economic Contexts

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Relations between parenting styles and child outcomes have been debated as specific to or equivalent across cultural, ethnic, and economic groups. Emergence of family interventions to modify parenting styles renders the debate of significant importance. While some of the research in the proposed symposium would support “one-size-fits-all” interventions, other results would not.

The three papers in this symposium address moderation or mediation of relations between parenting styles and child adjustment from different ethnic/cultural contexts. The first paper investigates potential moderators in the link between authoritarian parenting and psychological control and internalizing problems using a sample of Chinese American children. The attenuation of these links by neighborhood economic disadvantage and concentration of Asian families suggests the importance of both normativeness of parenting styles and shared resources in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The second paper suggests that Native American mothers may be more permissive than uninvolved and examines whether the association between parenting styles and child adjustment is mediated by maternal punitive responses to negative emotions. Evidence of mediation affords a potential target for future interventions. The third paper employs an innovative daily telephone interview to measure parental monitoring using a predominantly low-income, ethnic minority sample. Low antisocial and high prosocial behavior were found only when parents displayed a combination of high monitoring and high openness/involvement. These three papers extend the current literature by identifying within-cultural variations that diminish the impact of authoritarian style, mediators that link understudied permissive and uninvolved styles to child outcomes, and the importance of authoritative style in low-income families.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Laura Hubbs-Tait, Oklahoma State University

Discussant

• Amanda Sheffield Sheffield Morris, Oklahoma State University

Individual Presentations

• Parenting Styles and Chinese American Children’s Internalizing Problems: Moderating Roles of Neighborhood Context - Presenting Author: Qing Zhou, University of California, Berkeley; Erica H. Lee, University of California, Berkeley

• Relation of Maternal Permissive versus Uninvolved Styles and Punitive Response to Child Behavioral and Social Competence - Presenting Author: Ashley Kimble, Oklahoma State University; Laura Hubbs-Tait, Oklahoma State University; Robert E Larzelere, Oklahoma State University; Glade Topham, Oklahoma State University; Melanie Page, West Virginia University; Amanda Wiginton Harrist, Oklahoma State Univ

• Outcomes of Parental Knowledge of Daily Behavior among Adolescent Girls from Disadvantaged Backgrounds - Presenting Author: Michael M Criss, Oklahoma State University; Amanda Sheffield Sheffield Morris, Oklahoma State University; Amy Smith, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa