Relation patterns adopted by parents in raising their children, defining 
consequently the family emotional climate were parental behaviors 
occur (Baumrind, 1971, Darling & Steinberg, 2002

Hipólito, João

Jesus, Saul Neves de

Pires, Mónica

English

Repositório Institucional da Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa

25th European Health Psychology Conference
Engaging with Other Health Professions: Challenges and 
Perspectives
Hersonissos, Crete, Greece 
September 22, 2011
Parenting styles and child´s stress
a parent-child analyses
Mónica Taveira Pires
mpires@ual.pt
João Hipólito
Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa - Psychology Research Center (CIP)       
Saul Neves de Jesus
Algarve State University -University Psychology Research Center (CUIP)
1
Parenting styles
2
Relation patterns adopted by parents in raising their children, defining 
consequently the family emotional climate were parental behaviors 
occur (Baumrind, 1971, Darling & Steinberg, 2002)
Autorithative
Permissive
Autorithary
Sensibility
Control
Marital 
relation
– Promotes Children´s development 
– Cultural differences
– High anxiety levels in children and influence in school achievement (Ang & Goh, 
2006)
– Children externalize behaviour and authority dependence
(Maccoby & Martin 2003; Smetana, 1995)
– High parenting stress level and negative perception of children’s negative 
behaviors      (Deater-Deckard & Scarr, 1996)
– Children's externalize and internalize outcomes
– Arbitrary moral focused on consequences 
(Baumrind, 1971; Dornbush, 1997; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Heaven, et al. 2010; Lamborn, et al., 
1991; Leman, 2005; Taris & Semin, 2007; White & Matawie, 2004)
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Importance to family health
Parenting styles & children 
outcomes    I Child’s stress
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Child´s stress
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• Stressors evaluation based on adult perceptions
• Adult stress models inadequate to comprehension of children’s stress
• Prevalence of afective-emocional aspects in the stress responses to 
stress
Behavioral /emotional manifestations, such as:
• Retreat 
• Isolation
• Depression
• Somatized manifestations
• Prevalence and type of symptoms associated to:
• Gender, age, social-economical status (Goodyer, 1998; Lemes et al., 2003; Sbaraini & Schermann, 2008)
• Family as an important source of social/afective support and as 
moderator but also as a stress agent
• EP’s & stress
(Compas, et al., 1992; Cummings & Davies, 1994; Cummings et al., 2007; Grant et al. 2003; McCubbin & 
Patterson, 1983;  Rubin & Burgess, 2002; Webster-Stratton & Hammond, 1999)
Parenting styles I Stress
Family
5
burning up
resources
Inconsistent 
parenting 
authority
Development  
promoting 
Parenting 
styles  
Inadequate 
parenting 
styles CHILD
Incongruence
Stress Symptoms
Unconditional 
positive regard
Adaptation
Development & 
potentialities 
actualization
Social
Support
Stressor
Stressor
Moderador
Social 
Support
coping
strategies & 
parental 
negative 
emotions
Stressor
Cultural characteristics -
values
Individual differences
Marital relation
Parenting perceptions
Transgeracionality
Problem I Design
 Parenting styles may differ from each family member
 Parenting styles may predict child’s stress symptoms 
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Family Dyads
6
Parent Perception Child Perception
Stress 
Symptoms
Mother 
Parenting Style
Mother 
Parenting Style 
Father
Parenting Style
Father
Parenting Style 
Participants
• Convenience sample
• Lisbon urban area
• 103 mothers age from 25-47 (M=36.1; SD= 5.62)
• 57 fathers age from 29-51 (M=38.9; SD= 8.9)
• 148 children
• 73 boys (50%) e 73 girls (50%)
• Age from 5 to 8 years old (M=6.27; SD= 1.1)
• Private schools (n=73, 49%), Public schools (n=41, 27.7%) e IPSS’s 
(n=23%)
• Mostly with a nuclear family (n=113, 66.9%)
– with one brother/sister (n=80, 54.4%)
7
148 families
Family Dyads
103 mother-child dyads
57 father-child dyads
Instruments
• PAQ-P – Parenting Authority Questionnaire for parents
– Adaptation of Parental Authority Questionnaire Buri (1991) and Portuguese validation
– 3 Parenting styles Authoritative / Authoritarian / Permissive 
• PAQ-C – Parenting Authority Questionnaire for children 
(5-8 year olds)
– Inspired in the Parental Authority Questionnaire Buri (1991)
– 18 verbal and manipulative items / Portuguese validation
– 2 Parenting styles scales:
– Father Scale: Authoritative-Authoritarian / Permissive
– Mother scale: Authoritarian-Authoritative / Permissive 
• ESI – Child Stress Symptoms Scale
– Translation to Portuguese expression of the Brazilian Scale from Lucarelli and Lipp (1998)
– Portuguese Validation
– 3 scales Depressive reactions / psychophysiological reactions / psychophysiological-fear 
reactions  and Global stress score 8
Procedures
 Research protocols distributed in several schools after school board 
permission and contact with teachers
 Parents consent form and research protocols return in sealed envelop
 Children questionnaires application
 Data inserted and analyze with SPSS 17 (Statistical Package for de Social 
Sciences)
 Missing values analyze
 Correlations and paired t student test
 Linear and multiple regression
 Significant level established at >.05 
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Results
 Parent dyads
 Parenting styles agreement but,
 Fathers view themselves as more authoritarian [t(53) = -2.526, p<.01]
 Substancial agreement in parental dyads dominant parenting styles 
(Cohen’s Kappa .663, p<.001). 
 Only in the type of school (private schools) a correlations 
were found between parenting styles and child stress
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Results
 Mother/father-child dyads
 Different parenting styles perceptions in parent-child dyads     
(correlations with all p’s>.24)
 Father/mother permissiveness in child perception
 Fathers more authoritative in child perception (t(84) =-2.459, p<.05]
 Child perception agreement of mother-father dominant parenting styles 
(Cohen’s Kappa .23, p=.005)
 Disagreement in dominant parenting styles in 
 Father-child dyads (Cramer’s V= .217, p=.294)       
 Mother-child dyads (Cramer’s V= .153, p=.589) 
 Children see their mother/father as more permissive or with an 
undifferentiated parenting style
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Results consistent with previews studies (Smetana, 1988, 1995)
Possible desirability effect
But, consis ent mother-fath  parenting styles  in child’s 
perceptions
(Winsler et al., 2005)
Results   I Child perception
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Parenting Styles
Permissive
Authoritative-
authoritarian
Authoritarian-
authoritative
Global score
Psychophysiological
Reactions
Psychological-depressive 
Reactions
Child Stress
PermissiveMother Father
Psychophysiological -
fears Reactions
.397**
-.236*
.629**
-.220*
.386**
.423**
.749**
.737**
.353** .815**
Boys
.282*
Boys
-.318*
Boys
.267*
(p <.05; p<.01**)
Results   I Child perception
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Parenting styles
Permissive
Authoritative
authoritarian
Authoritarian-
authoritative
Boys
F(1.55)=6.184, p<.05; 9% da variância (β=-.318)
Global stress
Psychophysiological
Reactions
Psychological-
depressive Reactions
Child stress
PermissiveMother Father
Psychophysiological -
fears Reactions
Discussion
• Independence of parent-child parenting style perception.
• No correlations were found in parents parenting styles and child’s stress
But in children perceptions,
– fathers authoritativeness-authoritarian (r=-.22, p<.05) and mother 
permissiveness (boys only) correlates negatively to stress reactions 
explaining 9% variation [F(1.55)=6.184, p<.05].
These findings enhance the importance of parent awareness of theirs 
and their child's perception, communication, emotional climate, and 
it's inclusion on primary prevention parenting awareness programs, 
promoting health-quality in non-clinical families.
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Discussion
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 Mother and father Parenting Styles agreement - Child perception
 Parent-child disagreement on parents parenting style
 Type of school exerts an effect on parenting styles and children’s stress
 Children´s perception of parenting styles predicts child’s stress symptoms
 But, not in parents perception
 Authoritative and permissive styles are associated to lower stress levels
Importance of the development of instruments destined to pre-school and school 
age children
Importance of new methods and statistical procedures to evaluate different family 
perceptions to know their own realty and experiencing
Emergency of new child stress models
Importance of the family dynamics that promotes children’s development and 
family health
Importance of context variables in family studies
Results consistent with previous studies in parenting styles and family stress 
models researches 
Discussion
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 Limitations
 Instruments / social desirability
 Sample homogeneity  - Urban / Majority married couples
 Little age range (5 a 8 olds)
 Difficulties in collecting family data
 Future Studies
 Continue to develop children's instruments
 Importance of mix-methods research and to quantitative and qualitative data 
in family research
 Continue to access different family perceptions to the same variable
 Continue to study parenting stress and its relation to individual, family and 
contextual variables in Portuguese samples
 Parenting practices   I  self-esteem  I  self efficacy (ongoing research)
 Parental and child's stress (ongoing research)
 Child's stress and family and peer relations
25th European Health Psychology Conference
Engaging with Other Health Professions: Challenges and 
Perspectives
Hersonissos, Crete, Greece 
September 22, 2011
Parenting styles and child´s stress
a parent-child analyses
Mónica Taveira Pires
mpires@ual.pt
João Hipólito
Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa - Psychology Research Center (CIP)       
Saul Neves de Jesus
Algarve State University -University Psychology Research Center (CUIP)
17


Parenting styles and child´s stress a parent-child analyses

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Parenting styles and child´s stress a parent-child analyses

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Repositório Institucional da Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa