中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: Previous studies on parenting practices have been agreed on some results regarding what parenting practices promote optimal child outcomes. For example, the positive effects of authoritative parenting practices on children have been found across different family structures, social economic status, and ethnicities. However, an important question has been raised: Is ”parenting practices” parental report, or child report? Are there significant discrepancies between parents' and child's perceptions? Because what affects a child's outcome is the child's perception of parenting practices, rather than his/her parents' perception, therefore, factors related to children's perception is the main concern of this study. The goal of this study was to examine the perceptual differences on the frequency of authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting practices between parents and children. Factors related to perceptions on the children's sides were also examined. Methods: Four hundred and seventy children (grade 6) and their parents participated in this study. Parenting Practices Questionnaires (one for parental report and one for child report), Parenting Attribution Questionnaire (child report), and Parent-child Relationship Questionnaire (child report) were used in this study. For Parenting Attribution Questionnaire, two factors were found: one was positive parenting attribution; the other was negative parenting attribution. For example, positive parenting attribution includes ”Parents praised me because I did something good”; ”Parents did not spend time with me because they were too busy”. Negative attribution includes ”Parents punished me because they were in bad mood”; ”Parents did not spend time with me because they did not care about my activities”. In terms of Parent-child Relationship Questionnaire, degree of emotional satisfaction was assessed. For example, the child would rate how ”joyful”, ”happy”, ”relaxed”, ”interesting”, ”fun” in his/her relationship with his/her mother or father. Results: Our study revealed the significant differences in the perceptions of the frequency of authoritative and neglect parenting practices between parents and children. However, perceptions of the frequency of authoritarian parenting practices between parents and children were pretty consistent. Compared to fathers' perception, children perceived father's parenting practices as less authoritative, less permissive, and more neglected. Discrepancies of perceptions between children and mothers had the same pattern with discrepancies between children and fathers. However, perceptions of the frequency of permissive parenting practices between mothers and children did not differ significantly. Correlations among children's perceptions of parenting practices, parenting attribution, and parent-child relationship were also examined. Results showed that children's perceptions of authoritative parenting were negatively related to authoritarian and neglect parenting practices, but positively related to their perceptions of permissive parenting. Perceptions of authoritarian parenting were positively related to permissive and neglect parenting practices. Permissive parenting and neglect parenting were positively correlated. Moreover, perceptions of authoritative parenting practices were positively correlated with positive parenting attribution and parent-child relationship, and negatively correlated with negative attribution. Authoritarian parenting was positively related to negative parenting attribution, and negatively related to parent-child relationship. However, authoritarian parenting had no significant relation with positive parenting attribution. Permissive parenting was positively related to positive parenting attribution and parent-child relationship. As for neglect parenting, it was negatively related to positive parenting attribution and parent-child relationship, and positively related to negative parenting attribution. Next, several multiple regress analyses were conducted to assess the predictors of perceptions on the children's sides. In predicting children's perception of authoritative and neglect parenting, parents' self reports could only explain approximately 10% variances. Nonetheless, after adding (a) parents' self report of other forms of parenting practices, (b) children's perceptions of other forms of parenting practices, and (c) children's perceptions of parenting attribution and parent-child relationship, up to 60% of variances could be explained. Using the same methods to examine the possible predictors for children's perception of permissive parenting, only 32 % of variances were explained, though. Conclusions: The results suggested that, in addition to examining parents' perception of their own parenting, it was important to understand the perceptions on the children's side, including their perceptions of parenting attributions and parent-child relationship. Moreover, predictors of perceptions on parents' sides could be examined in the future study. For example, why parents overestimate certain type of parenting practices, and underestimate the other types of parenting practices? Future studies could also further analyze perceptual discrepancy independently for mother-daughter, mother-son, father-daughter, and father-son dyads, in order to understand how gender plays a role in this issue.