Mothers’ and fathers’ well-being, parenting styles, and their children’s cognitive and behavioural strategies at primary school

Abstract

Kaisa Aunola University ojHelsinki, FinlandOne-hundred and five 6-to 7-year-old children were given a test meas uring their helpl essness, fa ilure expec tatio ns, task-irrelevant beha viour, lack of p ersist ence and search fo r social suppo rt in a classroom setting in order to examine the impact ofpar ental well-being a nd parentin g styles on the childre n's cog nitive and behavioural strategies at school. Both par ents were also asked to fill in scales measuring their depression, parenting stress and parenting styles. The res ults reveal ed th at matern al .dep ressive symp to matology was associated with their children's use of maladaptive strategies, whereas pa ternal dep ress ion was not. Moreo ver, maternal auth or itat ive parenting styles and authoritarian control, seemed to decrease their children 's use of maladaptive strategies. On the other hand, the more parenting stress reported by the fa thers, the more their children showed the use ofmaladapti ve strategies.It has be en su ggest ed that the cog nitive and be hav io ural stra tegi es childre n and adolesce nts apply in classroom settings may provide a basis for their school achievement. Helplessness beliefs and related passivity (Diener & Dweck, 1978), being afraid of failure, task-irrele vant behaviou r and lack of persistence in the task at hand (Nurmi, Onatsu, & Haavisto, 1995a) have been found to lead to low achievement and related problems at school. For exa mple, Nurmi et a l. (1995a ) fou nd that und er achieving adolesc ents appl ied dysfunction al cognitive and behavioural patterns that res embled the se lf-handicapping behaviours des cribed earl ier by Jones and Berglas (1978). They showed higher levels of failure expectations and task-irrelevan t behaviour than their matched-pa ir controls. Butkow sky 544

Maternal Depressive Symptomatology and Parenting Behavior: Exploration of Possible Mediators

“…Specifically, it has been demonstrated that parenting efficacy is negatively related to coercive parenting and positively related to parental responsiveness, involvement, and monitoring (e.g., Bondy and Mash 1999;Gondoli and Silverberg 1997;Shumow and Lomax 2002). Similarly, a positive association between parenting stress and authoritarian or harsh parenting has been found (e.g., Deater-Deckard and Scarr 1996;Emery and Tuer 1993); parenting stress also has been shown to be associated with less maternal responsiveness and affection, as well as less parental supervision (Onatsu-Arvilommi et al 1998;Ritchie and Holden 1998).…”

“…Current findings provide initial evidence that maternal parenting stress, as well as locus of control mediate this association when examining lax parenting. Parenting stress as a mediator is not surprising given that previous research has found a positive association between maternal depression and negative perceptions of parenting (for a review, see Downey and Coyne 1990), as well as a positive association between parenting stress and lax parenting (e.g., less responsiveness and supervision; Onatsu-Arvilommi et al 1998;Ritchie and Holden 1998). Maternal locus of control as a mediator of the maternal depressive symptomatology-lax parenting association is interesting.…”

The Roles of Achievement-Related Behaviours and Parental Beliefs in Children's Mathematical Performance

“…For example, parents' general beliefs and related child-rearing practices may provide a basis for their children's own selfperceptions (Frome & Eccles, 1998;Parsons et a1., 1982;Stevenson & Newman, 1986) and, consequently, their task-focused or task-avoidant behavior, which is then reflected in their mathematical performance. Another possibility is that parents' general beliefs about their children's academic competendes are assodated with authoritative parenting styles (Murphey, 1992), the effective scaffolding (Pratt, Green, MacVicar, & Bountrogianni, 1992), and rational guidance (Maccoby & Martin, 1983), which have been shown to motivate children's active problem solving attempts and task-focused behavior (Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993;Onatsu-Arvilommi, Nurmi, & Aunola, 1998), and high subsequent performance.…”

Effects of Multidomain Risk Accumulation on Cognitive, Academic, and Behavioural Outcomes

“…], the NEPSY, the Boston Naming Test). Many of the measures had been translated earlier, and Finnish reliability and validity data were available from earlier research projects (e.g., the Parenting related stress; the Beck Depression Inventory; the Child Rearing Practices Report; see OnatsuArvilommi, Nurmi, & Aunola, 1998). Some of the measures were translated into Finnish during the longitudinal follow-up and local norms were then collected in conjunction with the research process (e.g., the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory).…”