Urban Chinese Parents' Perceptions of their Strengths and Needs in Rearing “Only” Sons and Daughters

Abstract

This study sought to determine what Chinese urban parents perceived as their strengths and needs in rearing “only” children. The Parental Strengths and Needs Inventory was administered to a sample of 208 workers in the Special Iron & Steel Company in Beijing, China, who were parents of only children from ages 6–13. Sixty Likert-type questions served to identify strengths and needs in 6 sub-areas: parent satisfaction, parent success, home teaching, parent difficulty, parent frustration, and information needs. The overwhelming majority of urban parents of only children reported that they possessed strengths in child rearing. However, the Chinese parents perceived differential strengths and needs in child rearing related to gender of parents (e.g., doing a good job as caregiver, letting the child enjoy free time) and gender of child (e.g., watching the development of self-confidence, overall parent frustration). Four conclusions were drawn from this study: (a) Parents perceived themselves to have strengths in only-child rearing; (b) mothers perceived themselves as more successful than fathers in only-child rearing; (c) parents of sons reported more child rearing frustrations and difficulties than parents of daughters; and (d) there appeared to be a cross-sex relationship (father-daughter; mother-son) in some areas of only-child rearing, particularly home teaching.