| Research Abstract |
To investigate the effects of parents' factors on children's peer relationships, 214 mothers and 186 fathers, whose children are enrolled in nursery schools in Kushiro participated with this project. Parents completed many questionnaires about parenting practices, family functioning, personality, marital relations, beliefs about children, child temperament, grandparents' parenting practices and so forth. Teachers in nursery schools evaluated children's social behaviors (prosocial behaviors, aggressive behaviors, withdrawal behaviors, emotion, and anxiety). The relationships between parents' parenting practices (authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting practices) and children's social behaviors, family functioning, personality, marital relations, child temperament, and grandparents' parenting practices were examined. The findings showed that mothers' authoritarian parenting practices were negatively correlated with children's prosocial behaviors and self-assertion. Fathers' authoritarian parenting practices were positively correlated with children's violence. Children's unsteady and immature characteristics influenced parents' authoritarian parenting practices.Authoritarian parenting practices are positively correlated with selfishness and family stress in family functioning and marital relations (e.g. fighting each other). Authoritative parenting practices were positively correlated with family idealization and good marital relations. The findings that grandparents' parenting styles were consistent with parents' parenting styles suggest that parents' behaviors and beliefs, including parenting practices are inherited from one generation to the next generation.
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