The Relationship Between Parenting Style And Behavioral Problems Of Migrant Children: A Cross-lag Analysis

With the continuous progression and development of economic,a large number of rural migrant workers come to cities to earn a living.In recent years,more and more children move to urban areas with their parents,learn and live in cities.Their social integration is vital not only for the future of this group,but for the future of the future of the urban and rural development.However,they are facing many challenges and difficultices,then appearing many problem behaviors.Many studies indicate that parenting style affect children's problem behavior.So we mainly study the relationship in children's problem behaviors and parenting style,under Patterson's coercion model.The present study examined the bi-directional relations between parenting style and migrant children's problem behavior with longitudinal design.535 migrant children and 240 local children from 4 public schools were selected to participate in the study at Time 1 and 514 of them were tracked at Time 2 over a one year interval.The analysis was based on the data from these 514 participated in both surveys.The results showed that:(1)The longer the amount of time spent living in urban city,the less external problem behavior was reported,while the number of internal problem behavior has no significant change.And migrant children reported more external problem behavior than local children at both T1 and T2,however,they did not differ in internalizing problems;(2)There are significant positive correlations between parenting style and problem behavior;(3)Parents warmth,control and refuse at T1 positively predicted migrant children's internalizing problem,parents warmth at T1 positively predicted local children's internalizing problem.While parents rejection marginally significantly positively predicted migrant externalizing problem;(4)On the other hand,internalizing problem positively predicted parents rejection at T2 in the migrant children,while internalizing problem positively predicted parents warmth at T2 in the local children.In conclusion,these results supported the hypothesis that parenting style and problem behavior have bi-directional relations.It offers some references and suggestions for the educators.Implications for future research are discussed.