Why Are Chinese Mothers More Controlling Than American Mothers? “My Child Is My Report Card”

Chinese parents exert more control over children than do American parents. The current research examined whether this is due in part to Chinese parents' feelings of worth being more contingent on children's performance. Twice over a year, 215 mothers and children (M_age = 12.86 years) in China and the United States (European and African American) reported on psychologically controlling parenting. Mothers also indicated the extent to which their worth is contingent on children's performance. Psychologically controlling parenting was higher among Chinese than American mothers, particularly European (vs. African) American mothers. Chinese (vs. American) mothers' feelings of worth were more contingent on children's performance, with this contributing to their heightened psychological control relative to American mothers.     

Caregiver Experiences of Discrimination and African American Adolescents’ Psychological Health Over Time

The present study examined the effect of caregivers' experiences of racial discrimination on their adolescent children's psychological functioning among a sample of 264 African American dyads. Potential relations between caregiver discrimination experiences and a number of indicators of adolescents' (aged 12–17) psychological functioning over time were examined. It was found that caregiver discrimination experiences were positively related to adolescents' symptoms of depression and negatively related to their psychological well‐being. Additional analysis revealed interactions between the effects of caregiver discrimination experiences and family income on all 3 outcomes. Greater caregiver discrimination experiences and lower family income were risk factors for the youth in the sample. These findings underscore the deleterious consequence of caregivers' discrimination experiences on African American youth's psychological health.     

HOW HOMES INFLUENCE SCHOOLS: EARLY PARENTING PREDICTS AFRICAN AMERICAN CHILDREN'S CLASSROOM SOCIAL–EMOTIONAL FUNCTIONING

Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort were used to examine the extent to which early parenting predicted African American children's kindergarten social–emotional functioning. Teachers rated children's classroom social–emotional functioning in four areas (i.e., approaches to learning, self‐control, interpersonal skills, and externalizing behaviors). Mothers completed self‐report questionnaires assessing their home‐based parenting practices (i.e., warmth and home learning stimulation). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that mothers who engaged in more frequent home learning stimulation (e.g., shared book reading) had children with more positive teacher ratings of approaches to learning, self‐control, interpersonal skills, and fewer externalizing behaviors. Notably, demographic characteristics also contributed to children's social–emotional functioning. Specifically, African American girls from more affluent, two‐parent homes with highly educated mothers had the most positive ratings of classroom social–emotional functioning across all four dimensions.     

The Cultural Structuring of Parenting and Universal Developmental Tasks

Objective. This study explores middle-class Anglo and Puerto Rican mothers' beliefs and self-reported practices related to infant feeding, sleeping, and toilet training. Design. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 60 mothers (Anglo = 32, Puerto Rican = 28) in their homes when their infants were 8 months of age. Results. Compared to Puerto Rican mothers, Anglo mothers had earlier age expectations regarding feeding-related milestones, were more likely to use the strategy of providing opportunities for learning, more likely to refer to emotional components of the learning process, such as pride or self-esteem, and less likely to use parental control or guidance. Puerto Rican mothers emphasized instrumental independence, or the ability to perform tasks without help, whereas Anglo mothers focused on emotional autonomy, or concern about the child's inner self. Conclusions. Puerto Rican mothers' emphasis on encouraging instrumental independence suggests a more nuanced perspective regarding such broad rubrics as "individualism" and "sociocentrism." In particular, Puerto Rican mothers tended to view instrumental independence as necessary for meeting societal expectations. Thus, independence need not solely be associated with the values of mothers from individualistic cultures. However, Puerto Rican mothers' focus on instrumental independence is distinct from Anglo mothers' emphasis on emotional autonomy and appears to serve larger sociocentric goals.     

African American and European American Mothers' Beliefs about Negative Emotions and Emotion Socialization Practices

OBJECTIVE: Mothers' beliefs about their children's negative emotions and their emotion socialization practices were examined. DESIGN: Sixty-five African American and 137 European American mothers of 5-year-old children reported their beliefs and typical responses to children's negative emotions, and mothers' emotion teaching practices were observed. RESULTS: African American mothers reported that the display of negative emotions was less acceptable than European American mothers, and African American mothers of boys perceived the most negative social consequences for the display of negative emotions. African American mothers reported fewer supportive responses to children's negative emotions than European Americans and more nonsupportive responses to children's anger. African American mothers of boys also reported more nonsupportive responses to submissive negative emotions than African American mothers of girls. However, no differences were found by ethnicity or child gender in observed teaching about emotions. Group differences in mothers' responses to negative emotions were explained, in part, by mothers' beliefs about emotions. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in beliefs and practices may reflect African American mothers' efforts to protect their children from discrimination.     

Citizens and/or consumers: mutations in the construction of concepts and practices of school choice

Recent research on school choice highlights the tendency among some White, middle‐class parents to engage with discourses of community responsibility and ethnic diversity as part of their responsibility and duty as choosers and who therefore exercise choice in ways that undercut the individualistic and self‐interested character framing governmental discourses and rationalities around choice. This article contributes to these debates through making visible the ways in which some mothers articulate and combine meanings and practices of choice that register contrasting and sometimes contradictory notions of active and responsible parenting. Drawing on data from a group of mothers of diverse social class and racial backgrounds, I explore how some mothers negotiate their school choice around a number of intersecting positions and relations that work across, as well as within, formulations of public–private, collective–individual, citizen–consumer, political–commercial. Through a consideration of the relationships in practice between these diverse elements, this article questions the analytic value of distinctions between citizen and consumer, community and individual as framings for understanding the motivations and aspirations shaping some mothers' school choices.     

Mothers' and fathers' racial socialization in African American families: implications for youth

Mothers' and fathers' cultural socialization and bias preparation with older (M=13.9 years) and younger (M=10.31 years) siblings were studied in 162 two-parent, African American families. Analyses examined whether parental warmth and offspring age and gender were linked to parental practices and whether parents' warmth, spouses' racial socialization, or youth age or gender moderated links between racial socialization and youth outcomes. Parental warmth was linked to parents' socialization. Mothers engaged in more socialization with older offspring, and fathers more with sons. Mothers' cultural socialization was positively related to youth ethnic identity and fathers' was negatively related to youth depression symptoms. Youth exhibited a lower locus of control when mothers were high but fathers were low in racial socialization.     

Understanding Associations Between Low-Income Mothers' Participation in Education and Parenting

Maternal education is one of the strongest predictors of children's academic outcomes. One possible explanation for this is that more highly educated mothers more frequently engage in parenting practices that may promote children's later cognitive development; however, most of this evidence is correlational. This study uses Head Start Impact Study data (N = 1,953) to explore whether low-income mothers' participation in education affects their parenting practices and beliefs. Principal scores, which predict maternal educational participation based on covariates, were used for analysis. Principal score matching was used to identify mothers who we predicted participated in education because their children were randomly assigned to Head Start. We compared these mothers' outcomes to those of mothers we predicted would have participated in education if they were assigned to Head Start. For these mothers, participation in maternal education was associated with children watching fewer hours of TV, having more types of printed media at home, and more frequent participation in cultural activities, but it was not associated with a host of other parenting outcomes. Changing parenting is one potential pathway by which maternal educational participation may influence children's later academic outcomes.     

A Longitudinal Investigation of African American and Hispanic Adolescents' Educational and Occupational Expectations and Corresponding Attainment in Adulthood

Adolescents' expectations about school and work may be key antecedents of adult attainment and this relationship may vary by specific racial, ethnic, and gender groups. This article examines how educational and occupational expectations change in adolescence and how expectations predict corresponding attainment in adulthood. Participants included African American and Hispanic females and males. Educational and occupational expectations were reported at ages 14, 16, and 18, and educational and occupational attainment at ages 20 and 26. Results indicated distinct developmental trajectories per racial or ethnic and gender group. Educational expectations were more nuanced for African American and Hispanic females than for their male counterparts; occupational expectations were more varied for Hispanic females than for other groups. Educational expectations positively predicted educational attainment for all participants, whereas occupational attainment was predicted just by educational expectations and for Hispanic females and males only.     

Perceived discrimination and the adjustment of African American youths: a five-year longitudinal analysis with contextual moderation effects

Longitudinal links between perceived racial discrimination and later conduct problems and depressive symptoms were examined among 714 African American adolescents who were 10-12 years old at recruitment. Data were gathered 3 times over a 5-year period. Hypotheses were tested via latent curve modeling and multiple-group latent growth modeling. Increases in perceived discrimination were associated with increased conduct problems and depressive symptoms. This association was weaker when youths received nurturant-involved parenting, affiliated with prosocial friends, and performed well academically. For conduct problems, the association was stronger for boys than for girls; for depressive symptoms, no gender differences emerged. The findings thus identify contextual variables that moderate the contribution of perceived discrimination to African American youths' adjustment.     

Unpacking the Impacts of a Universal Parenting Program on Child Behavior

This study examined the theory of change of the ACT Raising Safe Kids parenting program, including whether intervention effects on children's behavior problems were explained by improvements in mothers’ reported parenting practices, as well as whether baseline child behavior problems moderated these relations. Adult mothers of 3-to 8-year-old Brazilian children were assigned to the intervention (n = 97) or control (n = 46) groups. Results showed that the intervention improved mothers' perceptions of their parenting practices (positive discipline, emotional and behavioral regulation, and communication). Intervention-induced reductions in children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior problems were mediated by improvements in mothers’ emotional and behavioral regulation. Program effects were strongest for children with high levels of baseline behavior problems.     

Gender Differences in Child Aggression: Relations With Gender‐Differentiated Parenting and Parents’ Gender‐Role Stereotypes

This longitudinal study examines the association between child gender and child aggression via parents’ physical control, moderated by parents’ gender‐role stereotypes in a sample of 299 two‐parent families with a 3‐year‐old child in the Netherlands. Fathers with strong stereotypical gender‐role attitudes and mothers were observed to use more physical control strategies with boys than with girls, whereas fathers with strong counterstereotypical attitudes toward gender roles used more physical control with girls than with boys. Moreover, when fathers had strong attitudes toward gender roles (stereotypical or counterstereotypical), their differential treatment of boys and girls completely accounted for the gender differences in children's aggressive behavior a year later. Mothers’ gender‐differentiated parenting practices were unrelated to gender differences in child aggression.     

The moderating capacity of racial identity between perceived discrimination and psychological well-being over time among African American youth

This study examined the influence of racial identity in the longitudinal relation between perceptions of racial discrimination and psychological well-being for approximately 560 African American youth. Latent curve modeling (LCM) and parallel process multiple-indicator LCMs with latent moderators were used to assess whether perceptions of racial discrimination predicted the intercept (initial levels) and the slope (rate of change) of psychological well-being over time, and whether racial identity moderates these relations. The results indicated that African American adolescents who reported higher psychological responses to discrimination frequency levels at the first time point had lower initial levels of well-being. Regressing the slope factor for psychological well-being on the frequency of discrimination also revealed a nonsignificant result for subsequent well-being levels.     

Children's Preliteracy Skills: Influence of Mothers' Education and Beliefs About Shared-Reading Interactions

Research Findings: This research investigated the associations among children's preliteracy skills, mothers' education, and mothers' beliefs about shared-reading interactions for 45 Appalachian families. These variables were studied for lower income, primarily European American, families residing in a geographically isolated, small, rural community in the Appalachian Mountains. Children's performance on standardized measures of preliteracy skills pertaining to print concepts and alphabet knowledge was substantially lower than normative references, but their performance on tasks assessing their understanding of environmental print was similar to normative references. The preliteracy skills of children with more educated mothers were significantly better than those of children with less educated mothers. More educated mothers had higher ratings on a measure of parental beliefs about shared reading than less educated mothers had; however, maternal reports of the frequency of home literacy practices were similar for both groups. Mediation analyses indicated that mothers' beliefs about shared-reading interactions served as a mediator for the association between maternal education and children's understanding of reading conventions. Practice or Policy: Future directions for research and implications for practice are discussed.     

Domain-specific antecedents of parental psychological control and monitoring: the role of parenting beliefs and practices

This research examined the effects of domain-differentiated beliefs about legitimate parental authority and ratings of restrictive parental control on adolescent- and mother-reported psychological and behavioral control. The influence of parenting beliefs and practices regarding socially regulated (moral and conventional) and ambiguously personal (multifaceted and personal) issues was examined in 93 middle-class African American early adolescents (M = 13.11 years, SD = 1.29) and their mothers, who were followed longitudinally for 2 years. Domain-specific parenting beliefs and ratings predicted adolescent-reported maternal psychological control and parental monitoring, but the nature and direction of the relations differed. Adolescents who rated parents as more restrictive in their control of personal issues and who believed that parents should have less legitimate authority over these issues rated their mothers as higher in psychological control. In contrast, more adolescent-reported parental monitoring was associated with gender (being female) and adolescents' beliefs that parents have more legitimate authority to regulate personal issues. As expected, adolescent age and gender influenced mother-reported monitoring and psychological control; in addition, the effects of mothers' ratings of restrictive control on both psychological control and monitoring were moderated by gender. The results indicate that psychological control and monitoring can be understood in terms of the particular behaviors that are controlled, as well as the style in which control is exercised.     

Mothers' Responsive Parenting Practices and Psychological Experience of Parenting as Mediators of the Relation Between Marital Conflict and Mother - Preadolescent Relational Negativity

Objective. This study assessed direct and indirect relations between marital conflict and mother - preadolescent relational negativity. Design. Self-report questionnaire data were gathered from 156 married mothers and their firstborn 5th graders who were between the ages of 10 and 12 years. Participants completed measures of marital conflict, responsive parenting practices, the psychological experience of parenting (e.g., parenting stress), and mother - preadolescent relational negativity (e.g., conflict). Results. Structural equation modeling indicated that marital conflict was positively associated with maternal reports of negativity in the mother - preadolescent relationship. In contrast, marital conflict was not associated with preadolescent reports of negativity in the mother - preadolescent relationship. Subsequent analyses revealed that the relation between marital conflict and maternal report of mother - preadolescent relational negativity was indirect and mediated by responsive parenting practices and mothers' psychological experience of parenting. Conclusions. This study integrated essential components from the marital conflict, stress and coping, and parenting literatures. Understanding the roles of different aspects of parenting in the relation between marital conflict and the mother - child relationship suggests new directions for research.     

Low Income African American Mothers' Parenting Stress and Instructional Strategies to Promote Peer Relationships in Preschool Children

This study investigated mothers' stress as a predictor of her instructional strategies for promoting peer relationships in preschool children. Forty-two low income African American mothers responded to structured interviews on the teaching strategies they frequently used to facilitate peer interactions of their two to three- and-a-half-year-old children. Mothers' stress was measured by The Parenting Stress Index-Short Form. Using regression analysis, three stress predictors of mothers' strategies to promote peer relationships were examined: parental distress, difficult child, and parent-child dysfunctional interactions. The three predictors of stress had a differential impact on mothers' instructional strategies. As stress increased: (a) when teaching their own children, mothers more frequently used strategies that reduced antisocial behaviors and less frequently used the strategies that promoted pro-social behaviors towards peers; (b) when teaching their children's peers, mothers less frequently used strategies that would directly benefit these children. Educational implications of these findings for stressed parents, professionals who work with stressed parents, as well as those professionals who teach parent educators are examined.     

Authoritative and Authoritarian Mothers' Parenting Goals,Attributions, and Emotions Across Different Childrearing Contexts

Objective. The central goal of this study was to explore how childrearing contexts might moderate relations between parenting styles and mothers' parental beliefs and emotional responses. Design. Participants were 76 mothers of children (41 boys, 35 girls) ranging in age from 30 to 70 months. Mothers completed a global measure of parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative). Self-reports of parental beliefs (parental goals, attributions) and emotional responses (angry, embarrassed, happy) were assessed in response to hypothetical vignettes depicting a variety of children's behaviors (aggression, misbehavior, shyness, prosocial behavior). Results. In situations depicting children's negative behaviors, authoritarian mothers were less focused on empathic goals and attributed child aggression and misbehaviors to less external sources than their more authoritative counterparts. Authoritarian mothers were also more likely to respond with greater anger and embarrassment across all childrearing scenarios. Conclusions. Results suggest that authoritarian and authoritative mothers differ in their affective response patterns consistently across childrearing contexts, but that more challenging childrearing situations accentuate differences in the cognitive reactions of authoritative versus authoritarian mothers. Implications for understanding how general parenting styles may be translated into specific parental responses are considered.     

A Longitudinal Examination of Racial Identity and Racial Discrimination Among African American Adolescents

This study tested the longitudinal association between perceptions of racial discrimination and racial identity among a sample of 219 African American adolescents, aged 14 to 18. Structural equation modeling was used to test relations between perceptions of racial discrimination and racial identity dimensions, namely, racial centrality, private regard, and public regard at 3 time points. The results indicated that perceived racial discrimination at Time 1 was negatively linked to public regard at Time 2. Nested analyses using age were conducted, and perceptions of racial discrimination at Time 2 were negatively linked to private regard at Time 3 among older adolescents. The findings imply that perceived racial discrimination is linked to negative views that the broader society has of African Americans.     

Parental racial socialization as a moderator of the effects of racial discrimination on educational success among african american adolescents

This study investigated whether parental racial socialization practices moderated the relation between racial discrimination in school and adolescents’ educational outcomes. Using data from a longitudinal study of an economically diverse sample of 630 African American adolescents (mean age = 14.5) from a major East Coast metropolis, the results revealed that cultural socialization attenuated the effect of teacher discrimination on grade point average (GPA) and educational aspirations, as well as the effect of peer discrimination on GPA. Also, preparation for bias and cultural socialization interacted to make unique contributions to African American adolescents’ educational outcomes. Finally, there was some evidence that teacher discrimination was more detrimental to the academic engagement of African American males than females. Implications for research and practice are discussed.