Defensive and Supportive Parental Communication in a Discipline Situation

Summary

The relationship of parenting discrepancy and dyadic adjustment to parental communication behaviors in a videotaped discipline situation was studied in 47 two-parent preschool-child triads. Parents tended to exhibit supportive communication in the discipline situation and indicated low levels of parenting discrepancy and high levels of dyadic adjustment. Parenting discrepancy and dyadic adjustment were not found to be significant predictors of defensive and supportive parental communication. Three null hypotheses dealing with the potential interaction between sex of child and level of discrepancy, sex of child and level of dyadic adjustment, and level of discrepancy and dyadic adjustment were not rejected. The variables of awareness of videotaping, role of disciplinarian, and sex of child were significant predictors of defensive and supportive communication for fathers and the Parenting Discrepancy Scale was a moderately sensitive discriminator between fathers exhibiting high and low levels of defensive communication.