Parenting styles of Chinese families and children’s social-emotional and cognitive developmental outcomes

ABSTRACT

Using data from a sample of Chinese children (n = 297) aged 3–6 years in Beijing, we examined the characteristics of Chinese parenting styles and the relationship with children’s developmental outcomes. A 6-month follow-up study of 110 of the 297 participants further explored the long-term effect of parenting styles on children’s development. Results showed that: (a) the mean scores of the four dimensions of authoritative parenting were significantly higher than those in the four dimensions of authoritarian parenting; (b) democratic participation positively predicted children’s mathematics and science, and non-reasoning/punitive strategies negatively predicted children’s social-emotional and cognitive development in Wave 1; (c) in Wave 2, verbal hostility positively predicted children’s cognitive development, and directiveness positively predicted children’s social relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Parenting style
• Chinese families
• social-emotional and cognitive development
• follow-up study
• young children

Acknowledgement

We appreciate the assistance of the students and staff in the Institute of Early Childhood Education in Beijing Normal University and the children, parents and teachers who cooperated with us collecting data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 15CSH053) and 2017 Comprehensive Discipline Construction Fund of Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University.