Abstract:The authors investigate whether parental use of punitive discipline and yielding to coercion varies in levels and associated child outcomes for mothers with different parenting styles. Participants were fourth-grade children (N = 370) and their mothers. Maternal parenting style was determined based on levels of responsiveness and demandingness. Authoritative mothers used less punitive discipline than indifferent mothers. Authoritative and authoritarian mothers engaged in less yielding to coercion than indifferent or indulgent mothers. More punitive discipline and yielding to coercion were associated with lower academic grades and more punitive discipline was associated with more social problems, with these effects not moderated by parenting style. Negative effects of yielding to coercion in terms of internalizing, externalizing, and social problems were observed only within authoritarian families. Greater use of punitive discipline was associated with more externalizing problems within the indulgent and authoritarian parenting style groups and more internalizing problems within the authoritarian group.
Twenty African American and European American mothers of fourth‐grade students reflected on strategies for managing children’s friendships maintained across a variety of contexts. Ethnicity differentially located families within specific social contexts that yielded children’s friendships, then informed social processes as they unfolded within these contexts. Maternal knowledge concerning children’s friendships developed as a function of the types of relationships formed among parents encountered within different settings. Findings suggest that interparental relationships represent a key source of information about children’s friendships. Yet, maternal opportunities to establish such relationships differ on the basis of both ethnicity and the nature of contexts in which children’s friendships are maintained.
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