THE ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN INTER-PARENTAL DISSIMILARITY IN AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING AND CHILD PROBLEMS IN EARLY AND MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: A LONGITUDINAL INVESTIGATION USING DATA FROM THE GUSTO STUDY

Abstract

Authoritative parenting has been associated with positive socioemotional outcomes in children across time and cultures. Extant parenting literature has focused on dyadic interactions (e.g. parents’ individual interactions with children), while triadic interactions (e.g. mother-father-child interactions) have been less examined. With increasing recognition of the important role fathers play, dissimilarity in authoritative parenting between mothers and fathers (and maternal perceptions of dissimilarity) and its association with child problems is a valuable triadic interaction to explore; however, literature on this has been lacking. Using a longitudinal design with an ethnically diverse community sample (n=188) from the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) cohort study, this study examined if mothers’ perceptions of dissimilarity between her own and fathers’ authoritativeness when children were age 4 would predict concurrent child problems and later child problems at age 7. Recognising that parenting interacts with child characteristics to influence child outcomes, we also examined whether parenting dissimilarity would influence child problems above and beyond the effect of child emotion dysregulation. Our hierarchical regression analyses did not find concurrent associations (age 4) between parents’ authoritativeness and perceived parenting dissimilarity with child problems. However, the results supported the positive long-term effects of authoritative paternal parenting on later child outcomes at age 7. Importantly, our results also suggested that reducing perceived dissimilarity in authoritativeness between fathers and mothers, particularly in early childhood, may promote better long-term child socioemotional outcomes. These longitudinal associations were significant above and beyond children’s baseline level of emotion dysregulation.