Differences between Mothers and Fathers in Teaching Style and Child-Rearing Practices

Parent-child interaction was recorded while 32 mothers and 32 fathers taught their children to play a simple game in a naturalistic environment. Steward and Steward's (1973, 1974) Parent Interaction Code was used to quantify the parent-child behaviors and analyses showed that mothers differed from fathers on several dimensions involving teaching style. Such differences were also found for the child-rearing practices of the parents.