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Moderators of the Relations Between Mothers’ and Fathers’ Parenting Practices and Children’s Prosocial Behavior

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Abstract

Using multilevel modeling, we separately examined the relations between mothers’ and fathers’ parenting practices and children’s prosocial behavior, as well as the moderating roles of child sex, age, and ethnicity. Participants included a diverse community sample of 129 cohabiting couples with a child aged 6–17. Results indicated that paternal positivity and corporal punishment were significantly related to girls’, but not boys’, prosocial behavior, and paternal involvement was related to prosocial behavior in school-aged children but not adolescents. Greater levels of positivity in both parents were related to more prosocial behavior in Caucasian children and less in African American children. Overall, the findings suggest that fathers’ parenting is important and may differentially influence children of different sexes and ages, underscoring the importance of examining both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting in relation to child outcomes and with diverse samples. Findings also highlight the need for culturally appropriate measures of parenting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA

    Michelle Gryczkowski & Sara Sytsma Jordan

  2. Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Sterett H. Mercer

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  1. Michelle Gryczkowski
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  2. Sara Sytsma Jordan
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  3. Sterett H. Mercer
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Correspondence to Michelle Gryczkowski.

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Gryczkowski, M., Jordan, S.S. & Mercer, S.H. Moderators of the Relations Between Mothers’ and Fathers’ Parenting Practices and Children’s Prosocial Behavior. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 49, 409–419 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-017-0759-3

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