S u m m a r y

 

Metsäpelto R.-L. & Pulkkinen L (2004)

Parenting styles and parents' psychosocial functioning

Psykologia 39:212-221. Vammala ISSN 0355-1067.

 

The present study investigated parenting styles and their association with parents' psychosocial functioning. Parents (94 mothers, 78 fathers; aged 36 years) were drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development. Cluster analysis based on three parenting factors (nurturance, restrictiveness,and parental knowledge of the child's interests, friends and whereabouts) yielded six gender-related parenting styles. Authoritative parents (mostly mothers) and emotionally involved parents (mostly fathers) were high in nurturance and high to moderate in parental knowledge. Authoritarian parents (mainly fathers) and emotionally detached parents (mainly mothers) were low in nurturance, high to moderate in restrictiveness, and moderate to low in parental knowledge. Permissive parents were low in restrictiveness and parental knowledge and moderate in nurturance, while engaged parents were high in all parenting factors. Good and poor psychosocial functioning were found to accumulate in certain parenting styles. Good psychosocial functioning, (i.e., psychological well-being, average or good marital relationship and high social support) was characteristic to authoritative, emotionally involved and engaged parents, and poor psychosocial functioning (particularly low psychological well-being and poor marital relationship) was typical to authoritarian, emotionally detached and permissive parents. Financial standing did not differ among parenting styles.

 

Key words: parenting style, psychosocial functioning

 

Riitta-Leena Metsäpelto Ph.D. (Psych.) & Lea Pulkkinen, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 35, FIN-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland.