Concerted Cultivation and Adolescent Psychopathology over Time-Mediation of Parent-Child Conflict

Abstract

Background: Concerted cultivation is a parenting strategy that parents nurture their children intensively by involving heavily in their children’s academic sphere as well as offering them different structured “enrichment” activities so that their children can succeed in the future competitive “rug rat race”. While this parenting strategy has been regarded as an effective strategy to promote child and adolescent development, it is deemed to create stress and anxiety for their children. The present study examined the relationship between concerted cultivation and adolescent psychopathology (indexed by depression and anxiety) via parent–child conflict among Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong over time. Method: A sample of 1570 young adolescents (48.5% girls, mean age at time 1 = 12.6, SD = 0.76) were recruited from 19 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Adolescents were invited to fill out a questionnaire that contained measures of concerted cultivation, parent–child conflict, anxiety and depression in two consecutive years. Results: Results from structural equation modeling showed that higher levels of paternal concerted cultivation were associated with higher levels of adolescent psychopathology via increased father–child conflict over time. However, maternal concerted cultivation was linked to greater mother–child conflict but reduced father-child conflict, which was associated with adolescent psychopathology. Discussion: Rather than regarding concerted cultivation as an effective parenting strategy that promotes adolescent development, the findings indicated that concerted cultivation increased adolescent psychopathology via increased parent–child conflict. The study sheds new light for family practitioners and educators in their awareness of the adverse effects of concerted cultivation and designing appropriate parent education programs for parents.

Effects of interparental conflict on children's depression in the context of COVID-19: Does parent–child conflict play a role?

“…In the future, qualitive studies can be implemented to further examine various forms of family conflicts and their effects on children's well-being. Fourth, similar to some studies on the same topic ( Grych et al, 1992 ; Leung, 2020 ), the conflict between parents and parent–child conflict in this study were both measured according to the reports of children. It is important to note that this self-report measure only reflects children's perception of family conflict and may not be objective enough.…”

“…This finding was also consistent with previous studies ( Gunlicks-Stoessel et al, 2010 ; Tompson et al, 2015 ). For example, in a study on concerted cultivation in Hong Kong, Leung (2020) found that increased parent–child conflict was significantly related to increased depression and anxiety in children. The current study confirmed that parent–child conflict was a risk factor for children's depression.…”

“…Hence, future studies can adopt multi-dimensional scales ( Grych et al, 2010 ; Straus et al, 1998 ) to comprehensively evaluate interparental conflict and parent–child conflict. Second, although most studies acknowledged that verbal antagonism was the most important dimension of conflict within a family ( Grych et al, 1992 ; Yang et al, 2022 ), some relevant studies operationalized interparental conflict and parent–child conflict as negative verbal interactions such as nagging and quarreling ( Leung, 2020 ; Sherrill et al, 2017 ), while others assessed family conflict using multi-dimensional scales ( Gunlicks-Stoessel et al, 2010 ; Zhen et al, 2022 ). It is noteworthy that the difference in conceptual operationalization limited the comparisons between this study and those relevant studies.…”

Overparenting, Parent-Child Conflict and Anxiety among Chinese Adolescents: A Cross-Lagged Panel Study

“…Adolescents may resist parental intrusion by acting against their parents' wishes, which will generate parent-child conflict. A poorer parent-child relationship may in turn lead to poorer adolescent wellbeing [34].…”

“…Based on the existing overparenting literature e.g., [4] as well as the qualitative results of parents' and adolescents' focus groups on Chinese overparenting [11], the 42-item PCOS/MCOS were developed with eight dimensions: parental surveillance, parental intrusion into children's routines and direction, over-emphasis on children's school performance, repeated comparisons of children's achievements with other children's, over-scheduling of tutorials and talent enhancement classes, anticipatory problem-solving, excessive care, and disproportionate affective involvement [58]. Over-emphasis on children's school performance and over-scheduling of tutorials and talent enhancement classes are regarded as unique features of concerted cultivation specific to Chinese parenting practice [34]. A sample item reads "I need to report everything to my father/mother" Respondents rated each item on a 6-point Likert scale (1 = "strongly disagree"; 6 = "strongly agree").…”