The prospective relations between five types of parental reactions to children's negative emotions (PRCNE) and children's psychological adjustment (behavioral problems and social competence) were examined in a two-wave longitudinal study of 425 school-age children in China. Parents (mostly mothers) reported their own PRCNE. Parents, teachers, and children or peers reported on children's adjustment. Parental punitive reactions positively predicted externalizing problems (controlling for baseline), whereas emotion- and problem-focused reactions were negatively related to internalizing problems. Parental minimizing and encouragement of emotion expression were unrelated to adjustment. Concurrent relations were found between PRCNE and parents' authoritative and authoritarian parenting dimensions. However, PRCNE did not uniquely predict adjustment controlling for global parenting dimensions. The findings have implications for cultural adaptation of parent-focused interventions for families of Chinese origin.

Direct and indirect/mediated relations of (a) children's and parents' cultural orientations and (b) parent-child gaps in cultural orientations to children's psychological adjustment were examined in a socioeconomically diverse sample of 258 Chinese American children (age ϭ 6 -9 years) from immigrant families. Parents reported on children's and their own Chinese and American orientations in language proficiency, media use, and social relationships. Parents and teachers rated children's externalizing and internalizing problems and social competence. Using structural equation modeling, we found evidence for both the effects of children's and parents' cultural orientations and the effects of parent-child gaps. Specifically, children's American orientations across domains were associated with their better adjustment (especially social competence). These associations were partly mediated by authoritative parenting. Parents' English and Chinese media use were both associated with higher authoritative parenting, which in turn was associated with children's better adjustment. Furthermore, greater gaps in parent-child Chinese proficiency were associated with children's poorer adjustment, and these relations were partly mediated by authoritative parenting. Together, the findings underscore the complex relations between immigrant families' dual orientations to the host and heritage cultures and children's psychological adjustment.

This study examined the unique relations of American and Chinese cultural orientations to the content and quality of first-generation Chinese American immigrant mothers' emotion discussion with their school-aged children (age = 5 to 9 years). Mother-child dyads (n = 187) were videotaped during a storytelling task, and various aspects of mothers' emotion talk were coded. Mothers self-reported on their cultural orientations in language proficiency and behaviors (i.e., media use and social affiliations). Controlling for socioeconomic status, mother's age, child age, gender, and generation status, as well as the length, elaborateness, and language (English and/or Chinese) of storytelling, mothers' Chinese orientation was uniquely associated with their lower use of emotion questions and explanations and a lower quality of emotion discussion. Although mothers' American orientation was positively correlated with their use of positive emotion words and emotion explanations, it did not uniquely predict emotion discussion after controlling for other predictors.

Using data from a socioeconomically diverse sample of Chinese American children (n ϭ 258, aged 6 -9 years) in immigrant families, we examined the concurrent relations among neighborhood economic disadvantage and concentration of Asian residents, parenting styles, and Chinese American children's externalizing and internalizing problems. Neighborhood characteristics were measured with 2000 U.S. Census tract-level data, parents (mostly mothers) rated their own parenting styles, and parents and teachers rated children's behavioral problems. Path analysis was conducted to test two hypotheses: (a) parenting styles mediate the relations between neighborhood characteristics and children's behavioral problems, and (b) children's behavioral problems mediate the relations between neighborhood and parenting styles. We found that neighborhood Asian concentration was positively associated with authoritarian parenting, which in turn was associated with Chinese American children's higher externalizing and internalizing problems (by parents' reports). In addition, neighborhood economic disadvantage was positively related to children's externalizing problems (by parents' reports), which in turn predicted lower authoritative parenting. The current results suggest the need to consider multiple pathways in the relations among neighborhood, family, and child adjustment, and they have implications for the prevention and intervention of behavioral problems in Chinese American children.

Asian Americans (AAs) are the second largest foreign‐born population in the United States. Contrary to the “model minority” stereotype that this group is unitarily well adjusted and high achieving, recent research has revealed substantial differences in mental health adjustment among AA children. Although research to identify the risk processes for mental health problems among AA children is underway, it has paid little attention to related asset and protective processes. This article selectively reviews the theory and empirical evidence on a set of child‐, family‐, and neighborhood‐level characteristics for their potential asset or protective roles in AA children's mental health adjustment. These characteristics include (a) child factors (maintenance of heritage culture, bilingualism, coping, and emotion regulation), (b) family factors (authoritative parenting and parental support), and (c) a neighborhood factor (ethnic community). Overall, systematic efforts to identify asset and protective factors for AA children's mental health and understand the underlying developmental mechanisms are nascent. Directions for future research in this area are also discussed.