Parenting Discrepancy and Child Development in Chinese Context

Abstract

Although parent–child discrepant perception of the family has been increasingly noted in the west, pertinent research is limited in Chinese societies. In addition, prior pertinent studies predominantly treated parent–child discrepant effects as independent of the general and aggregate family context, which are in fact inseparable. Furthermore, these studies tended to either look at the positive side of child outcomes or those negative ones. The present study, based on a community sample of 223 Chinese parent–child dyads, attempted to examine effects of parent–child discrepancy in effective parenting practices on both children’s positive, i.e. self-control and other perspective taking behavior, and negative outcomes, i.e. internalizing and externalizing problems, directly or indirectly through the mediator of children’s self-concept at the aggregate effective parenting context. Results largely support harmful effects of parent–child discrepancy in effective parenting on the child outcomes directly or indirectly through children’s self-concept. Besides, aggregate effective parenting practices are found to robustly contribute to the child outcomes directly and indirectly through children’s self-concept, even taking parent–child discrepant effects into account. What’s more important, the former is significantly moderated by the latter for its effects on the child outcomes, explicating the conditional nature of parent–child discrepant effects on child development. Contributions and implications of the current study applied in Chinese culture as well as future study directions are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Parent–child discrepant effects
• effective parenting
• child self-concept
• child outcomes
• Chinese culture

Notes

1 Hong Kong is mainly demarcated into three major localities that are Kowloon, Hong Kong Island, and the New Territories. In order to enhance representativeness of the participating parent–child dyads, churches locating in different geographical regions were invited to help recruit eligible participants, in which 13 local churches in Kowloon, 16 in Hong Kong Island, and 14 in the New Territories, a total of 43 local churches, helped to recruit eligible participants. Consequently, 65 parent–child dyads in Kowloon, 87 in Hong Kong Island, and 71 in New Territories were successfully recruited and provided valid data for the study.

2 Aroian test is written $Z=\frac{ab}{\sqrt{\left(b^2{\text{SE}}_a^2\right)+\left(a^2{\text{SE}}_b^2\right)+\left({\mathrm{S}\mathrm{E}}_{a }^2{\text{SE}}_b^2\right)}}$, in which the third term of variance estimate in the denominator, $\left({\mathrm{S}\mathrm{E}}_{a }^2{\text{SE}}_b^2\right)$, is eliminated in Sobel test, that is $Z=\frac{ab}{\sqrt{\left(b^2{\text{SE}}_a^2\right)+\left(a^2{\text{SE}}_b^2\right)}}$. Symbols in the two equations are b = regression coefficient, ${\text{SE}}_{a }^2$= standard error for the association of the independent variable and mediator, and ${\text{SE}}_b$ = standard error for the association of the mediator and outcome variable.