Child Characteristics, Parent Education and Depressive Symptoms, and Marital Conflict Predicting Trajectories of Parenting Behavior from Childhood Through Early Adolescence in Taiwan

• Author: Yi‐Ping Hsieh,Lee‐Lan Yen,Anne Dopkins Stright
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12253
• Date: 01 September 2017
• Published date: 01 September 2017

Child Characteristics, Parent Education and

Depressive Symptoms, and Marital Conflict

Predicting Trajectories of Parenting Behavior from

Childhood Through Early Adolescence in Taiwan

YI-PING HSIEH*

ANNE DOPKINS STRIGHT

†

LEE-LAN YEN

‡

The study examined how child and parent characteristics, and contextual sources of

stress, such as marital conflict predict initial status and trajectories of parent involve-

ment, support, and harsh control, over a 4-year period in families in Taiwan

(n=4,754). Based on Belsky’s (1984) ecological model of parenting, three domains pre-

dicting parenting were tested, child characteristics (age cohort and gender), father and

mother characteristics (education and depressive symptoms), and contextual sources of

stress (marital conflict). The study followed two cohorts of children; the younger cohort

was followed from first to fourth grade and the older cohort from fourth to seventh

grade. Initially, fourth graders reported more parental involvement, support, and harsh

control than first graders. However, involvement, support, and harsh control decreased

across the 4 years for the older cohort as they transitioned to early adolescence. In the

first year, girls reported more parental involvement and support and less harsh control

than boys. Across the 4 years, involvement and support increased, and harsh control

decreased for boys; whereas involvement stayed the same, support slightly decreased,

and harsh control slightly increased for girls. Children whose parents were more

educated reported more parent involvement, support, and harsh control in the first

year. Children whose fathers were chronically depressed and whose parents were

experiencing marital conflict reported decreasing parent involvement and support over

the years.

Keywords: Parenting Behavior; Parental Depression; Marital Conflict; Childhood and

Adolescence; Multilevel Modeling; Trajectories

Fam Proc 56:734–751, 2017

*Department of Social Work, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND.

†

Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

‡

Department of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yi-Ping Hsieh, Department of Social

Work, University of North Dakota, 225 Centennial Drive, Stop 7135, Grand Forks, ND 58202. E-mail:

yiping66@gmail.com.

The study used part of the 2001–2004 data from the National Health Research Institutes supported

(2001: HP-090-SG-03; 2002: HP-091-SG-02; 2003: HP 092-PP-07; 2004: HP-093-PP-03) Children and Ado-

lescent Behaviors in Long-term Evolution (CABLE) Project. We thank the Education Departments of Tai-

pei City and Hsinchu County for administrative support, the 18 participating schools for providing venues

and time for the surveys, the children and their parents who were involved in the survey for their support,

and the interviewers and supervisors who helped in carrying out the survey.

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Family Process, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2017 ©2016 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12253

Parenting behavior has two primary dimensions that may affect children’s and adoles-

cents’ psychological, social, and behavioral development (Grolnick & Gurland, 2002).

The first dimension is involvement and support. Involvement includes shared activities,

such as eating meals together or working on homework, whereas support includes encour-

agement, praise, and comfort. The second dimension is control. A negative form of control

is harsh control which includes punitive control techniques, such as yelling , hitting, or

locking the child in his/her room. Previous cross-cultural research (Sorkhabi, 2005) has

extensively documented associations between parental involvement and support and posi-

tive outcomes and between harsh control and negative outcomes for children and adoles-

cents. Belsky’s (1984) ecological model of the determinants of parenting proposed that

parenting behaviors are affected by child characteristics, parent characteristics, and con-

textual stress. Further development of Belsky’s model broadened the model to include con-

textual factors outside the family such as culture (Holden & Miller, 1999). The current

study uses Belsky’s model, which was developed based on Western theory and research, to

explore predictors of parenting behaviors in a sample of families in Taiwan. Taiwan is an

island nation with a predominantly Han Chinese population (Andrade, 2010). Filial piety

and different roles for sons and daughters are important components of Confucian philoso-

phy, which is deeply rooted in Chinese culture (Ho, 1987). Sons have tradition ally been

valued more than daughters (Attan

e, 2009; Jiang, Li, & Feldman, 2011). Chinese culture

emphasizes parental authority and sacrifice as well as child compliance (Cha o, 1995). Chi-

nese families place a high emphasis on educational achievement and have high expecta-

tions for their children’s achievement (Cao, Bishop, & Forgasz, 2007; Chen, Lee, &

Stevenson, 1996; Hess, Chang, & McDevitt, 1987; Mau, 1997).

Child Characteristics and Parenting Behaviors

Belsky (1984) proposed that child characteristics may affect how difficult it is to care

for the child and affect parenting. Two child characteristics that may affect parenting

behaviors are gender and age. Children’s gender may be related to parenting behaviors

because gender differences in children’s behavior may make boys more difficult to care

for and consequently affect parenting behavior. Boys misbehave more than girls (Sch-

midt, Demulder, & Denham, 2002); consequently, parents may use more harsh contro l

with sons than daughters. Lytton and Romney’s (1991) meta-analysis did not find dif-

ferences in parents’ use of harsh control with boys and girls in North American samples

but did find that parents’ use of physical punishment was greater with boys than girls.

Boys perceive more paternal control than girls in Chinese families (Berndt, Cheung,

Lau, Hau, & Lew, 1993; Chen, Liu, & Li, 2000). Girls are more prosocial (Zahn-Waxler,

1993) and well-socialized (Hill & Lynch, 1983), so parents may be more likely to have

closer relationships with daughters than with sons and consequently may be more sup-

portive and involved with their daughters than with their sons. In both Western and

Asian samples, mothers spend more time talking with and provide more support and

warmth to their daughters than their sons (Berndt et al., 1993; Leaper, Anderson, &

Sanders, 1998).

In addition to sex differences in children’s behavior affecting parenting behavior, an

area that Belsky did not focus on in his original 1984 paper is that parenting goals may

differ for boys and girls and consequently affect parenting behavior. For example, parents

encourage their daughters to be more dependent and their sons to be more independent

during childhood and adolescence in European-American, Latino, and Asian-American

families (Chao & Tseng, 2002; Fuligni, Tseng, & Lam, 1999; Lytton & Romney, 1991). Con-

sequently, parents in the present study may encourage the development of independence

in their sons by being less involved and supportive, and using less harsh control. Or based

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