ABSTRACT
Parents engage in innumerable behaviors toward their children and toward each other about childrearing issues. One important aspect of these behaviors is their contribution to socializing children for competent interpersonal functioning (Lippitt, 1968). Recent research suggests that parents’ childrearing practices are an expression of a set of beliefs about how children become socially competent and how family environments should be structured for shaping their children’s behavior (e.g., Laosa & Sigel, 1982). From this perspective, the concrete behaviors of a parent embody an entire configuration of influences that must be brought into focus when attempting to understand the competence of children. When there are two parents involved in guiding a young person’s development, the complexities become far more intriguing and challenging to unravel.
