Parental educational styles from parents’ and children’s perspectives

INTRODUCTION. The construction of parental educational styles is diverse and they develop along with the children being raised. Self Determination Theory (SDT) establishes two dimensions to define parental educational behaviours: autonomy support versus control, and structure versus chaos. On the basis of SDT, two parental educational styles are pointed: authoritative and harsh. This study analyses the relationship between parental education styles and children’s perceptions of their parents’ behaviours, and the influence of the parent gender. METHOD. The sample comprised 2,404 parents, and 1,234 children from 3 autonomous communities in Spain. The Parents as social context questionnaire was applied, and the Perceived Parental Autonomy Support Scale and Dependency-oriented psychological control scale in children. All of the instruments were adapted into Spanish. Multigroup path analysis was performed to identify the most appropriate model about parental educational styles in family dynamics, taking into account the parent’s gender. RESULTS. Firstly, the authoritative and harsh parental styles were confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis. The findings showed that the ideal model was that where there was no bi-directionality between parents’ perceptions about their educational styles and their children’s perceptions. The chosen model indicates a unidirectional path from parents to children. Being necessary to keep a relation between the child’s perception about the received support for autonomy and parental control. The invariance of the model based on the gender was partially maintained. DISCUSSION. This study shows a model where the authoritative parental style influences child’s perceived autonomy support and where the harsh parental style has effects on child’s perceived threat. The concept of parental psychological control has been discussed. Finally, a balance between authoritative and harsh style, is proposed inside families.