Parenting and Turkish children’s behaviour problems: the moderating role of qualities of parent–child relationship

ABSTRACT

The current study is an examination of contributions of parenting styles and qualities of parent–child relationship (PCR) to Turkish children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviours, with a specific focus on the moderating role of PCR (closeness and conflict) on parenting styles (authoritarian and democratic/authoritative) when predicting children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviours. Participants were 94 children (56 boys) with the mean age of 7.05 years (SD = 0.88) in a suburban district in Turkey. Mothers reported on their parenting styles and relationships with their children as well as children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviours. Results from regression analyses showed that parent–child closeness significantly moderated the association between authoritarian parenting and children’s externalizing behaviours. Parent–child conflict significantly moderated the association between authoritarian parenting and children’s internalizing behaviours. The parent–child conflict was positively associated with children’s externalizing behaviour and authoritarian parenting was positively associated with internalizing behaviour. Limitations and future directions of the current study are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Turkish children
• externalizing behaviour
• internalizing behaviour
• parent–child relationship
• parenting styles

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Süleyman Yıldız is a graduate student in the department of Educational Sciences at Yıldız Techinical University and an elementary school teacher in Istanbul.

ORCID

Ibrahim H. Acar http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4007-5691

Şükran Uçuş http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7992-9802