Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Harsh parenting and encouragement'

This thesis examines long-term, negative consequences of various behaviours characteristic of negative parenting styles, specifically verbal maltreatment (insulting children), physical maltreatment (beating or hitting children), and lack of encouragement. Psychological scales were employed to explore the relationship of each of these factors to mental and physical health in adults. As a part of this research, a new questionnaire, the Arabic Parenting Style Questionnaire (APSQ), was developed and compared with existing measures. Seven separate studies were conducted with Saudi Arabian participants in order to investigate the questions put forth in this thesis. To explore the impact of harsh parenting and emotional discouragement, the relationships of these variables to mental and physical health were examined in both non-clinical and clinical samples including both men and women and a broad range of ages (19 to 60 years). Findings indicate that parents’ discouraging their children from expressing thoughts and feelings, and parents’ being verbally and physically harsh towards their children, are both powerful risk factors for a broad array of long-term health outcomes in both clinical and non-clinical samples. Various aspects of the individuals’ childhood relationships with their parents, as measured using the new APSQ, are significantly correlated with the following health- and wellness-related variables in adulthood: quality of life as assessed on the Global Quality of Life Scale (GQLS), health complaints as assessed using the Minor Health Complaints Questionnaire (MHCQ), well-being mood state, life satisfaction as assessed with the Life Satisfaction Scale (SLS), depression, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Borderline Personality Disorder, and specific physical diseases (asthma, cancer, heart disease).

Doctor of Philosophy<br>Department of Family Studies and Human Services<br>Sandra Stith and Jared Durtschi<br>Controversy still exists in whether parents should or should not use corporal punishment to discipline their young children. The aim of this study was to investigate whether corporal punishment when the child was two years old predicted child externalizing behaviors a year later, and whether or not this association was moderated by parents’ observed positivity and harshness towards their child. A total of 218 couples and their first born child were selected for this study from the Family Transition Project (FTP) data set. Findings indicated that frequency of fathers’ corporal punishment when the child was two years old predicted child externalizing behaviors a year later, while controlling for initial levels of child externalizing behavior. Also, it was found that observed positive parenting and observed harsh parenting moderated the relationship between corporal punishment and child externalizing behaviors. These results highlight the importance of continuing to examine the efficacy of a commonly used form of discipline (i.e., corporal punishment). Furthermore, this study suggests that the parental climate in which corporal punishment is used may also be important to consider because parental positivity and harshness attenuate and amplify, respectively, the association of corporal punishment with child externalizing. Implications for family therapy are offered.

Negative life stress and maternal inhibitory control are both critical ingredients involved in the shaping and maintaining of the quality of parenting behaviors. This study explored both how the experience of stressful life events and inhibitory control relate to two particular types of parenting behaviors: harsh/controlling and autonomy-supportive. Given that these two types of parenting have broad implications for children’s developmental trajectories, it is important to further enhance our understanding of the etiological factors that both shape and maintain parenting practices. Utilizing a high-risk sample (i.e. low SES, high presence of documented child maltreatment) of mothers with pre-school aged children, this study did not support the relationship between the experience of stressful life events, maternal inhibitory control and quality of parenting. However, post hoc analyses of life stress using a measure of objective SES did yield a significant link between stress and the presence of autonomy-supportive parenting. This study expands the current understanding of how stress and inhibitory control relate to parenting behaviors. Implications of this study for practice and research are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesized mediating role of social information processing on the relation between harsh parenting and childhood aggression. Specifically, this study sought to gain a better understanding of the association between parenting and children?s interpretations and mental representation of cues (intent attribution), their ability to generate solutions (response generation), and their solution selection process (response decision) and how these processes, in turn, relate to children?s propensity to behave aggressively. The sample consisted of 166 children and their parents. Approximately half of the children had a substantiated history of physical abuse. It was hypothesized that (a) higher levels of parental harshness would predict higher levels of aggression in children, (b) hostile intent attributions, fewer types of solutions generated, and a higher number of aggressive decisions would predict higher levels of child aggression, and (c) the relationship between parental harshness and aggressive behavior would be mediated by intent attributions, response generation, and response decision. Mediation was assessed using a series of regression analyses. Results revealed that harsh parenting did not significantly predict child aggression, response generation or response decision. Harsh parenting, did however, predict children?s intent attributions. Harsh parenting also predicted response decision when recoded as a dichotomous variable in a post-hoc analysis. Results further revealed that none of the social information processing operations investigated (intent attributions, response generation, and response decision) significantly predicted child aggression. Due to the lack of prediction among variables, mediation could not be assessed. Considerations for interpreting results, as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Child temperament has been implicated as a possible mediator or moderator of the relation between parenting and child outcomes. However, previous studies have lead to ambiguous interpretation of the results due to methodological problems. Sanson et al., (2004) conducted a review of the relation between temperament and social development and outlined four methodological problems with previous research in the field of temperament, two of which were addressed in the current study. The present study examined the moderating role of the three broad child temperament factors on the relation between three forms of parenting practices, punitive discipline, deficient parenting, and poor parental monitoring and child aggressive behaviors. Using a multimethod and multisource design, parent report, child report, observational data, and behavioral tasks were used to create the construct when possible. The present study also controlled for other factors that have been linked to child aggressive behaviors, specifically, child age and gender, maternal personality, and economic disadvantage. Mother report and child report of the criterion were examined separately using hierarchical regression and full information maximum likelihood estimation in path analyses. Three hypotheses were tested: 1) high levels of child negative affectivity will moderate the relation between harsh/punitive discipline and the development of aggressive behavior problems, 2) a combination of inconsistent discipline and neglect, or deficient parenting, will predict aggressive behaviors in children with high levels of surgency, and 3) that poor parental monitoring will predict aggressive behaviors particularly for children low on effortful control. Results using child report of aggressive behaviors indicated that temperament did not moderate the relationship between parenting practices and aggressive; however, higher use of punitive discipline predicted higher levels of aggressive behaviors. The covariates age and maternal positive emotionality, predicted aggressive behaviors as well, with older children reporting higher rates of aggressive behaviors and higher levels of maternal positive emotionality predicting lower levels of aggressive behaviors in children. Using maternal report of aggressive behaviors, deficient parenting had a main effect on child aggressive behaviors, with higher use of deficient parenting predicted high aggressive behaviors. While temperament did not moderate the relation between parenting and aggressive behaviors using maternal report either, effortful control did have a main effect on aggressive behaviors. That is, higher levels of effortful control predicted lower levels of child aggressive behaviors. As for the parenting variables, only deficient parenting had a direct relation to aggressive behaviors. The covariate maternal negative emotionality also predicted higher levels of mother reported child aggressive behaviors. In summary, although unable to find a moderation effect for temperament, this study found support for harsh punitive discipline and deficient parenting as risk factors of aggressive behaviors in children and found support for effortful control and maternal positive emotionality as protective factors against aggressive behaviors. Results are interpreted in terms of treatment for child aggressive behaviors and the need to examine data from different sources in a non-aggregated manner.

Given potential risk factors in the lives of adolescents, parents are usually motivated to monitor and protect their adolescents. There is a need to better understand what combinations of parental dimensions and practice best influence an adolescent's propensity to disclose or conceal personal information with their parents. This paper examines how parenting dimensions (warmth, psychological control, and harsh punishment) and the parenting practice of solicitation influence an adolescent's propensity to disclose or conceal information. Adolescents in 106 families (53 females; predominantly Caucasian) reported on their mothers' and fathers' parenting dimensions as well as their parents' effort to solicit information. Factor analysis was conducted on the measure typically used for disclosure to test whether the items measured only disclosure or if two distinct adolescent outcomes of disclosure and concealment were more appropriate. Results supported our contention that disclosure and concealment might be considered separately. Other results indicated a positive association between adolescents' disclosure and the positive parenting dimension warmth and parental solicitation. There was a negative association between disclosure and harsh punishment in the father-son dyad. Psychological control was positively associated with concealment for both adolescent boys and girls. With a few exceptions, same gendered dyads (father-son, mother-daughter) showed the most associations between parenting dimensions and practices and disclosure or concealment.

The present study investigated the direct and interactional effects of neighborhood disadvantage and harsh parenting on concurrent assessments and change in externalizing and internalizing behavior in toddlerhood. The study included 55 mothers and their children; families completed in-home assessments when children were 2 and 3 years of age. Mothers' reports were used to measure neighborhood disadvantage and children's problem behaviors. Observer ratings derived from a clean up task were used to measure harsh parenting. Four hierarchical regression equations were computed to test each study hypothesis. Results indicated marginally significant effects of harsh parenting on externalizing problems at age 2. Surprisingly, harsh parenting and exposure to neighborhood risk did not significantly predict increases in externalizing behavior problems from age 2 to 3. Harsh parenting was marginally related to children's internalizing problems under conditions of high levels of neighborhood disadvantage and predicted increases in internalizing over time. The theoretical implications of the results are discussed.

碩士<br>國立陽明大學<br>公共衛生研究所<br>104<br>Backgrounds: Does harsh parenting has a negative impact on adolescents and parents mental health? Prior studies in Taiwan using secondary data however, have put less emphasis on parent-child interaction and only focus on the outcomes of adolescents. Objectives: This study is based on the theory of parental reflective function proposed by Fonagy and Target (1997). We aim to conceptualize discrepancies in perceived harsh parenting between parent-child and assess if they are associated with current and subsequent depressive symptoms. Method: 1587 adolescents and one of their corresponding parents from the Taiwan Longitudinal Youth Project conducted in 2000 are analyzed. We use two way to conceptualize discrepancies in perceived harsh parenting (standard difference scores, interaction terms) and conduct the multiple linear regression. Result: There is a significant difference between parent-child with parents tend to perceive themselves as more harsh. The standardized difference scores are negatively related to current and subsequent adolescent depressive symptoms and positively related to current maternal depressive symptoms. Parental perception and adolescent perception has an interaction effect, the association between perceived hash parenting and parental depressive symptoms differ from high and low level adolescent perceptions. Conclusion: The harsher parents perceive than adolescents, the less depressive symptom adolescent would have and the more depressive symptoms mother might have. Harsh parenting has a negative impact on parental mental health, however, if child has a higher perception at the same time might reduce the negative effect. “Discrepancies” offer us a dynamic message and shed more light on parent-child interaction issues. Both standard difference score and interaction term are workable, they give messages of discrepancy from different sides.

碩士<br>國立臺北大學<br>犯罪學研究所<br>105<br>While the relationship between harsh parenting and delinquency was well established, long-term consequences of harsh parenting and mechanisms were relatively unexplored. Based on Agnew’s General strain theory, this study aimed to disentangle the effects of harsh parenting on substance use and violent delinquency longitudinally and to examine the roles of negative emotions. Analyses utilized path analysis and longitudinal data from the project of The Etiology of Adolescent’s Substance Abuse: A Social Learning Model in Taiwan. The results indicated that males and females differed in their responses to harsh parenting. While females tended to react to harsh parenting with substance use behavior, males tended to react to it with both substance use and violent delinquency. Additionally, the results showed that the effects of harsh parenting on deviant behaviors were mediated by anger and depression and that anger played a more critical role in mediation for both male and female adolescents. Some limitations and directions for future research were also discussed.

Differential parenting has been shown to be an important correlate and possible cause of positive and negative adjustment of sibling children. However, it is not known whether sibling differences in temperament affect this link between differential harsh parenting and sibling differences in adjustment outcomes. The current study addressed this gap in knowledge. The sample included 92 monozygotic (MZ, 63% female) twin pairs and 137 dizygotic same-sex (DZ, 52% female) twin pairs who had complete temperament survey data collected near the third annual wave in the longitudinal study. Children were 6.09 years old (SD = .69) years old at wave 1. Mothers completed questionnaires, and mother and child were observed interacting during a home visit. Within families, greater sibling differences in conduct problems were statistically predicted by greater differences in harsh parenting exposure between siblings, but not by differences in effortful control. A hypothesized two-way interaction between sibling differences in harsh parenting and differences in effortful control was not significant. Regarding statistical bidirectional “child effects”, greater sibling differences in harsh parenting exposure were statistically predicted by greater sibling differences in conduct problems and greater sibling differences in effortful control. A hypothesized two-way interaction between conduct problems and effortful control was not significant. There was evidence of a bidirectional association between differential harsh parenting and sibling differences in conduct problems. In order to study the proximal family process, it is important to investigate sibling differences using within-family designs. Results can inform parents about how their differential parenting practices may affect child behavioral outcomes, to keep in mind when they parent their children.

Tese de doutoramento em Psicologia (área de especialização de Psicologia Clínica)<br>Focusing on a group of socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers and their young children, the purpose of the present PhD study is twofold: 1) to investigate parenting stress, family conflict, and child difficult temperament as predictors of maternal harsh discipline, and to examine the potential moderating effect of socioeconomic deprivation severity on these associations; and 2) to test the effectiveness of the Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) in decreasing maternal harsh discipline, and to investigate the potential moderating effect of parenting stress on these associations. Maternal harsh discipline was measured using standardized observations during home visits, and mothers reported on parenting stress, family conflict, and child temperament. A randomized control pre- and posttest design was used to test the effectiveness of the VIPP-SD. Results showed that parenting stress and family conflict predicted maternal harsh discipline, but only in the most severely deprived families. The VIPP-SD proved to be effective in decreasing maternal harsh discipline, but only for mothers who experienced high levels of parenting stress at intake. These findings suggest that the spillover of negative parental functioning into parent-child interactions is particularly likely under conditions of substantial socioeconomic deprivation. Also, they show that even though parental stressors predict maternal harsh discipline, the VIPP-SD effects on the reduction of maternal harshness were found specifically for mothers reporting high parenting stress levels. They highlight the program’s ability to change parenting behaviors with those mothers at greater risk for harsh parent-child interactions.<br>A presente dissertação integra dois estudos focados num grupo de mães socioeconomicamente desfavorecidas e seus filhos e tem como principais objectivos: 1) investigar o stress parental, o conflito familiar e o temperamento difícil da criança como preditores da disciplina coerciva materna, bem como analisar o potencial efeito moderador da severidade da privação socioeconómica; e 2) testar a eficácia do Videofeedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) na redução da disciplina coerciva materna, bem como investigar o potencial efeito moderador do stress parental nestas associações. A disciplina coerciva materna foi avaliada com base em observações estandardizadas realizadas em casa das mães, que reponderaram também a questionários sobre o stress parental, o conflito familiar e o temperamento da criança. Uma análise randomizada de pré e pós-teste foi usada para avaliar a eficácia do VIPP-SD. Os resultados revelaram que o stress parental e o conflito familiar funcionaram como preditores da disciplina coerciva materna, mas apenas nas famílias de maior privação socioeconómica. O VIPP-SD mostrou-se eficaz no decréscimo da disciplina coerciva materna, mas apenas nas mães que revelaram maiores índices de stress parental no pré-teste. Estes resultados sugerem que o ambiente parental desfavorecido e negativo influencia a interacção mãe-criança particularmente em condições de maior privação socioeconómica. Além disso, demonstram que, apesar do stress parental predizer a disciplina coerciva materna, os resultados do VIPP-SD foram especificamente visíveis em mães que relataram maiores níveis de stress parental, evidenciando a eficácia do programa na mudança dos comportamentos de mães com mais interacções coercivas com os seus filhos.