ABSTRACT
This study investigated changes in parenting domains from middle childhood to adolescence in China and examined sociodemographic predictors of parenting domain trajectories. Data from 122 Chinese families (including children, their fathers, and mothers) were used to examine changes over time in four domains of parenting: parental warmth, behavioral control, rules/limit-setting, and knowledge solicitation. Parental age and educational attainment and child gender were included as predicators of parenting domain trajectories. Multilevel modeling via the PROC MIXED procedure was applied to analyze the longitudinal, multilevel data. The results showed that parental warmth slightly increased initially from ages 7-11 before slightly decreasing from ages 11–15. Parent behavioral control, rules/limit-setting, and knowledge solicitation decreased constantly over time with a greater decrease of rules/limit-setting and knowledge solicitation. In addition, parents provided slightly more warmth to daughters, as opposed to sons, across ages 7–15. Parents’ age at the child’s birth and parental education did not appear to affect the trajectory of any parenting domain. In the context of rapid socioeconomic development, Chinese parenting is shifting toward warmth and autonomy-granting. As China steps into the new era of the two-child rather than one-child family policy, further study is needed to explore parenting practices and sibling relationships in developmental and longitudinal perspectives.
