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PARENTING STYLES, PARENT-ADOLESCENT CONFLICT, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING OF ADOLESCENTS WITH LOW ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN HONG KONG

Chinese secondary school students with low academic achievement (N=365) responded to instruments measuring their perceived paternal and maternal parenting behavior and styles, and their conflict with the father and the mother. Results generally showed that more positive perceptions of specific parenting behavior, global parenting style, and parent-adolescent conflict were associated with a lower level of psychological symptoms and higher levels of positive mental health or coping resources. It was also found that compared with maternal characteristics and mother-adolescent conflict, paternal parenting characteristics and father-adolescent conflict were more strongly related to adolescent mental health. Does the family have any influence on adolescent development? While folklore and research findings tend to suggest that the family plays an important role in adolescent development, a survey of the literature shows that there is a need to study what aspects of the family are related to adolescent development in different adolescent populations. 1 Correspondence should be addressed to: Department of Social Work The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, Hong Kong E-mail: DANIELSHEK@CUHK.EDU.HK VOL. 9, NO. 4, 1997 233 234 D.T.L. SHEK, L.K. CHAN, AND T.Y LEE Amongst the various family factors which might influence adolescent development, parenting style has been regarded as an important factor. There are models of parenting styles (e.g., Maccoby and Martin, 1983) and research findings on the links between parenting styles and different areas of adolescent development, including academic achievement (Dornbusch, Ritter, Liederman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987) have been reported. With specific reference to adolescent mental health, there are research data on the link between parenting styles and adolescent psychosocial adjustment (Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991) and well-being (Fine, Voydanoff, & Donnelly, 1993). Another family factor which may influence adolescent development is parent-adolescent conflict. Parent-adolescent conflict has been hypothesized to have an impact on adolescent development (Robin & Foster, 1989) and there are data showing the link between parent-adolescent conflict and injuries (Bijur, Kurzon, Hamelsky, & Power, 1991) and identity development (Peterson, 1989). Tomlinson (1991) even regarded parent-adolescent conflict as the "major influence" in adolescent unacceptable behavior. With specific reference to parenting styles and parent-adolescent conflict, a survey of the literature on their links to adolescent psychological well-being reveals several phenomena. First, while many studies have been carried out to investigate the role of parenting styles, the impacts of other family processes, such as parent-adolescent conflict, have not been systematically examined. In addition, there are few studies in which the impacts of parenting styles and other family factors are simultaneously examined in a single study. Second, parenting style has been assessed in terms of adolescents' perceptions of the global parenting styles (e.g., Ginsburg, McGinn, & Harburg, 1970; Shek, 1989, 1993a) or specific parenting behavior (Lamborn et al., 1991) in previous studies. Darling and Steinberg (1993) argued that there is a need to distinguish global parenting characteristics from specific parenting practices in understanding parenting styles. Obviously, it is important to ask whether parenting style as indexed by adolescents' perceptions of global parenting characteristics or specific parenting practices would give different pictures on the link between parenting styles and adolescent psychological well-being. However, few researchers have examined this question and employed both measures in one single study (Shek, 1995a). INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT MEDICINE AND HEALTH PARENTING STYLES 235 Third, adolescent psychological well-being has been predominately defined in terms of psychiatric morbidity or symptoms in most studies, although some researchers have examined the impact of parenting styles on the development of adolescent self-esteem (Shek, 1989, 1993a). Conceptually, a "passive" definition of mental health can be criticized as too narrow because psychological well-being can be defined in terms of the absence of manifested psychiatric symptoms or the presence of positive mental health or existential attributes (Bradburn, 1969; Diener, 1984). According to the latter view, indicators such as life satisfaction, meaning in life, hope, or self-worth should be employed. In fact, it would be theoretically enlightening if measures of psychiatric morbidity and positive mental health can be included in a single study (Shek, 1989, 1993a). Fourth, while some attempts have been made to study parenting styles and academic performance in high performing science students (Hein & Lewko, 1994) and students in the general population (Dornbusch et al., 1987), not much effort has been made to examine the link between family environment and adolescent well-being in adolescents with lower academic achievement. Besides academic significance, an understanding of how the family influences adolescent mental health in the academically under-achieved can enable professionals to design preventive programmes for this group of adolescents who are often under the stress created by low academic attainment. Finally, most of the existing studies have been conducted in Western societies and few attempts have been made to examine the family environment-adolescent mental health link in the Chinese culture (Shek, 1995b). An examination of the existing databases (Ho, Spinks, & Yeung, 1989; Spinks & Ho, 1993) show that while there are some isolated attempts which examined parenting styles in different Chinese contexts, there is no known study which examines how family functioning or parent-adolescent conflict influences adolescent development. From a cross-cultural perspective, the lack of scientific studies in the Chinese context would motivate one to ask whether the family environment would have any influence on the psychological well-being of Chinese adolescents, and whether such influence would be different from those phenomena observed in the Western culture. These questions are legitimate for cross-cultural differences in parenting and related family processes might lead to the emergence of different phenomena. For example, it can be conjectured that Chinese people's emphasis on familism and harmony within