Influence of paternal general parenting on Latino early adolescents’ energy balance-related behaviours and interactions with behaviour-specific parenting practices

Objective: To investigate the influence of general parenting dimensions on adolescents’ energy balance-related behaviours (EBRB) and its interactions with behaviour-specific parenting practices based on Darling and Steinberg’s contextual model of parenting style. Design: Multiple linear regression analyses and the Hayes PROCESS procedure to analyse self-reported cross-sectional survey data. Setting: In-person survey. Participants: Latino early adolescents and their fathers (n 225 dyads) recruited using convenience sampling from metropolitan areas of north-central USA. Results: Both paternal parenting dimensions of warmth and autonomy granting were positively associated with adolescents’ fruit intake, vegetable intake and physical activity. Coercive control was positively associated with adolescents’ sugary drink intake and sweets/salty snack intake. These associations were predominantly mediated by the parenting practices of setting expectations/allowances, role modelling, and managing availability and accessibility for corresponding EBRB. After adjusting for parenting practices, paternal warmth was inversely associated with adolescents’ screen time, paternal autonomy was positively associated with sugary drink intake, and both paternal warmth and autonomy granting were positively associated with adolescents’ fast food intake. In addition, positive associations between fathers’ parenting practices and adolescents’ sugary drink intake were significantly stronger among those who perceived high v. low levels of paternal warmth and autonomy granting. Conclusions: Paternal warmth and autonomy granting showed mixed effects on adolescents’ EBRB, and coercive control showed undesirable relationships with adolescents’ dietary intake via interactions with behaviour-specific parenting practices. Lifestyle intervention programmes for Latino adolescents need to consider incorporating paternal parenting education components.

PARENTING STYLE OF WORKING AND NON-WOKING MOTHER – A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Parenting style is a psychological construct representing standard strategies that parents use in their child-rearing. Parenting styles are the representation of how parents respond to and make demands on their children. The present study attempts to find out the parenting style of working and non - working mothers. For this study 100, college students were randomly selected from three different colleges in Coimbatore city. The sample age range from 18 to 23 years and the mean age is 22.35 years. The personal details such as family type, rural/ urban have been gathered by using demographic profile form and the parenting scale inventory developed by Nancy Douling and Tera Toyokawam (1997) was used to gather the information regarding the parental style. The parenting scale inventory includes three subscales (responsiveness, autonomy granting and demandingness). The collected data were statistically analyzed with the help of mean, standard deviation and ‘t’- test. The results of the analysis showed that there is a significant difference in the responsiveness dimension, there is no significant difference seen in the other two dimensions autonomy granting and demandingness of parenting style of working and non- working mother. And there exists no significant difference seen in the parenting style of mothers who hail from either nuclear or joint family system.

Ecological Influences on Chinese Adolescents’ Problem Behaviors: A Multilevel Analysis

This study investigated the effects of individuals, school, and familial protective and risk factors and their interactions on adolescent problem behaviors using a stratified random sample of 2,864 (51.5% female) students from 55 classrooms in 13 schools in Shanghai, China ( Mage = 15.52 years, SD = 1.62). Results from the multilevel analyses indicate that being male, having high parent–adolescent conflict, high independent self-construal, low conformity, low grade rank, and low classroom-level and individual-level school adjustment predicted problem behaviors. Adolescent independent self-construal also interacted with parental autonomy granting to predict vandalism. For adolescents with low or moderate levels of independent self-construal, autonomy granting predicted lower odds of vandalism, but for adolescents with high levels of independent self-construal, parental autonomy granting predicted higher odds of vandalism. The findings highlight the complex effects of parenting and independent/interdependent self-construals on adolescent problem behaviors in China.

The Relationship Between Parenting Styles and Substance Use Among University Students

Parenting styles are important in the behavioral development of adolescents. The environment created by the parent, in regards to communication with their child and level of independence given to their child, may influence the child’s susceptibility to risk behaviors. This study examines the relationship between parenting style and substance use among university students. We hypothesized that university students exposed to lower levels of autonomy granting (AG) or parental involvement (PI) parenting styles would have an increased likelihood of alcohol and nicotine use. We also hypothesized that religiosity, parental education level, ethnicity, and gender would act as moderators of parenting styles and alcohol and nicotine use. Data from a diverse university-wide sample was collected in the fall semester of the student’s freshman year from 2011-2014 (N = 9889, 61.5% female). Results demonstrated that AG had a significant, negative association with alcohol use (B = -0.033, p = 0.006) and nicotine use (B = -0.066, p <0.001). All moderators were found to be significant predictors of alcohol use, however only father education level demonstrated a borderline significant moderation of the relationship between PI and alcohol use. Religiosity, Black race, Asian race, and gender were found to be significant predictors of nicotine use. Only gender moderated the association between PI and nicotine use. Even though alcohol and nicotine use and AG were associated, our results indicate that once students enter university, previous parenting style does not have a strong effect on alcohol and nicotine use behaviors in our sample. KEYWORDS: Parenting Styles; University Students; Risky Behaviors; Autonomy Granting; Parental Involvement; Alcohol; Nicotine; Drug; Behavioral Biology; Substance Use

Parental Encouragement and Autonomy-granting and Adolescents’ Use of Organized and Unorganized Leisure Time

Research on parents’ role in adolescents’ leisure spending tends to focus on parental encouragement based on the assumption that it is positively associated with adolescents’ participation in (beneficial) organized leisure. Few studies have, however, investigated how parental encouragement and autonomy-granting relate to adolescents’ organized and unorganized leisure spending. Multilevel analyses of data based on a survey of adolescents and their parents in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) suggest that (1) parental autonomy-granting is generally combined with lower levels of parental encouragement, (2) adolescents of encouraging parents participate more in organized and unorganized leisure activities and (3) adolescents of parents that combine encouragement with autonomy-granting do not participate more in organized and unorganized leisure activities.