50-5 The Associations between Perceived Parenting Behavior and Psychosocial Adjustment of Elementary School Students
| Ching-Ling Cheng | |
| National Taiwan Normal University |
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between elementary school students’ perceived controlling parenting and their psychosocial maladjustment. In the present study, controlling parenting was represented by psychological as well as behavioral control. Psychological control refers to parenting behavior that constrains and manipulates children’s psychological and emotional experiences, while behavioral control refers to parenting behavior that coercively regulates and demands children’s behavior and activity. Psychosocial maladjustment was indicated by emotional difficulties (i.e., emotional symptoms and hyperactivity of SDQ) and experiences of peer victimization (i.e., physical and relational victimization). The hypotheses of the present study were: (1) children’s perceived paternal and maternal psychological as well as behavioral control would be, respectively, positively associated with psychosocial maladjustment of early adolescents; (2) children’s perceived paternal and maternal behavioral control would positively predict their psychosocial maladjustment, respectively, for boys as well as for girls; and (3) children’s perceived paternal and maternal psychological control would positively predict their psychosocial maladjustment, respectively, for boys as well as for girls. The participants were 350 fifth-graders (173 girls and 177 boys; mean age = 10.89 years) from 18 classrooms of 8 elementary schools in 6 counties of Taiwan. Children reported how they perceived, respectively, their fathers’ and mothers’ controlling parenting (i.e., behavioral and psychological control). Participants also self reported their emotional difficulties and experiences of peer victimization. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses were conducted separately, by gender of children, for two different forms of parental control to examine the associations between paternal as well as maternal control and children’s psychosocial maladjustment. The results demonstrated that the psychological and behavioral forms of controlling parenting delivered by fathers and mothers respectively were associated with children’s emotional difficulties and peer victimization. With regard to the effect of behavioral control parenting, the model fit was first examined on all subjects and then separately on boy and girl samples. The SEM results showed that the estimated model was accepted in the girl sample (χ2 = 19.56, p > .05; RMSEA = .05, CFI = .99, SRMR = .06), but not in the boy sample. Furthermore, there were significant influences of maternal behavioral control on girls’ emotional difficulty (γ = .38, p < .01) and peer victimization (γ = .45, p < .001); however, there was no significant effect of paternal behavioral control on girls’ psychosocial maladjustment. Thus, while simultaneously considering the effects of behavioral control from fathers and mothers, for young adolescent boys, neither their perceived paternal or maternal behavioral controlling parenting would significantly predict their psychosocial maladjustment. On the other hand, the perceived maternal behavior control of young adolescent girls would predict their psychosocial maladjustment, but not the perceived paternal behavioral control. With regard to the effect of psychological control parenting, the SEM results demonstrated that the estimated models were both accepted in boy (χ2 = 17.31, p > .05; RMSEA = .05, CFI = .99, SRMR = .04) and girl samples (χ2= 11.44, p > .05; RMSEA = .00, CFI = 1.00, SRMR = .03). In addition, in boy sample, there was significant influence of paternal psychological control on boys’ maladjustment (γ of emotional difficulty = .70, p < .001; γ of peer victimization = .60, p < .001), but no significant maternal influence. On the other hand, in girl sample, there was significant influence of maternal psychological control on girls’ maladjustment (γ of emotional difficulty = .63, p < .001; γ of peer victimization = .51, p < .001), but no significant paternal influence. The findings thus demonstrated that, while considering simultaneously the effects of paternal and maternal psychological control, young adolescent boys with higher levels of perceived paternal psychological control tend to have more psychosocial maladjustment, and young adolescent girls with higher levels of perceived maternal psychological control tend to have more psychosocial maladjustment. This is the first study at Taiwan to examine how both paternal and maternal parenting in forms of behavioral as well as psychological control might relate to psychosocial adjustment of preadolescents, with child gender as the moderating factor. Briefly, for boys, only paternal psychological control was associated with their psychosocial maladjustment. For girls, both maternal psychological and behavioral control was related to their psychosocial maladjustment. Implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying the harmful effects of parental control on elementary school students’ psychosocial adjustment were further discussed.
Keywords
Behavioral control, parenting behavior, preadolescence, psychological control, psychosocial adjustment
Download