Chinese fathers' parenting practices and children’s behaviour and comparisons with New Zealand born fathers

Abstract

This thesis investigated the relationships between fathers reported parenting and prosocial and problem behaviours in 4 to 7-year children in two separate studies. Study 1 consisted of 112 fathers and their sons, in Auckland, New Zealand, who were participants in a two-part longitudinal study. At Time 1 the boys were aged 4-years and were followed up at age 7- years at Time 2. Study 2 comprised 182 Chinese fathers of a 4 to 7 years old child (M = 5.2, SD=1.11), who predominantly lived in Mainland China. Chinese fathers provided data via an anonymous Qualtrics survey. Fathers in both studies completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ, Goodman, 1997) to measure their child’s prosocial and problem behaviour. In study 1 only, SDQ data was also collected from each child’s teacher. Fathers’ authoritative parenting style was assessed in both studies using the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ; Robinson et al., 2001). In study 1, lax and overreactive parenting practices were measured with the Parenting Scale (PS; Arnold et al., 1993). For fathers in study 2, the PSDQ modified by Wu et al. (2002) was used to measure authoritarian and parenting style and five Chinese cultural-specific parenting practices (encouragement of modesty; protection; directiveness; shaming/love withdrawal; paternal involvement). In both samples, fathers’ authoritative parenting style was positively related to children’s prosocial behaviour and negatively related to children’s problem behaviours. In addition, fathers’ authoritarian parenting was positively related to problem behaviours. In the New Zealand fathers’ sample, lax parenting was also associated with child behaviour difficulties. In the Chinese sample, positive correlations were found between fathers’ authoritarian parenting, Chinese specific parenting practices (encouragement of modesty, protection, shaming/love withdrawal, paternal involvement) and children’s emotional and behavioural problems. Study 1 contributed new information about relationships between fathers’ authoritative parenting and teacher ratings of prosocial behaviour, fathers’ authoritarian parenting and teacher rated peer problems, and bidirectional relationships between fathers’ parenting and child behaviour. Study 2 is the first known research to investigate Chinese specific parenting practices (paternal involvement, encouragement of modesty, and shaming) and child behavioural problems and prosocial behaviour in a sample of Chinese fathers.