The Effects Of Parenting Style On Children's Social Withdrawal Behavior:The Mediating Role Of Parent-child Attachment

The current study explored the social withdrawal behaviors of primary school students and examined the effects of parenting style and parental-child attachment on social withdrawal behaviors.237 students and their parents from a primary school in Jilin were surveyed using the EMBU-P family rearing style questionnaire,the parent-child attachment questionnaire and the class drama questionnaire.Data was analyzed using Independent sample T tests,analyses of variance and regression analyses with SPSS20.0.Results indicated that,Gender and parental education backgrounds influenced students' social withdrawal behaviors.Specifically,the girls scored significantly higher than boys on the quiet withdrawal dimension,and boys scored significantly higher than girls on the active withdrawal dimension.With the growth of grade,the quiet behavior of high grade children is more than that of low grade children.Compared to children whose parents have no education and a primary school education,children whose parents have high school educations scored higher on the level of social withdrawal behaviors.Education backgrounds influenced parenting styles.Parents with a master's degree or above scored significantly higher than those parents with an undergraduate or below education in the emotional warmth of parenting.Education backgrounds influenced parental-child attachment.Parents with a master's degree or higher education scored significantly higher on parental-child attachment than those with a undergraduate or below educationThere was a significant correlation between parenting style and socialwithdrawal behavior.The dimension of emotional warmth was negatively related to the social withdrawal behavior.With parents scoring higher on the emotional warmth,the withdrawal behaviors of children decreased.The dimensions of over protection and rebuff were both positively correlated to the social withdrawal behaviors.With parents scoring higher on both dimensions,the withdrawal behaviors of children also increased.There was a significant correlation between parenting style and parent-child attachment.The dimension of emotional warmth and parent-child attachment positively correlated.The dimension of rebuff and over protection both negatively correlated with parent-child attachment.There is a negative correlation between the social withdrawal behavior of the primary school students and the degree of parent-child attachment,that is,as the parent-child attachment increased,the withdrawal behavior decreased.This study also establishes three partial mediations of the parent-child attachment on the relationship between parental styles and social withdrawal behaviors were found in the current study.Specifically,parent-child attachment was found to mediate the relationships between each of the three dimensions of parental styles(emotional warmth,over protection and rebuff)and the social withdrawal behaviors.