The Effects of Parenting Styles on Behavioral Problems in Primary School Children: A Cross-Cultural Review

Abstract

This review examines the literature regarding the effects of parenting styles on children’s behavioural problems in different cultures. An initial literature search yielded 941 articles. Subsequent screening of titles and abstracts identified 86 potentially relevant studies. These were stored in full text for additional checks in order to further verify if they corresponded to the purposes of the review. Inclusion criteria yielded 21 studies from the following twelve countries: USA, Canada, UK, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Finland, Croatia, Iran, China, Taiwan and Pakistan. Results indicate that parenting styles have an impact on children’s behavioural problems. Specifically, children from parents showing contributory factors such as “involvement with the child”, “monitoring the child” and other positive dimensions tended to have low levels of behaviour problems. Based on the literature review we conclude that this impact of parenting styles may vary across societies. However, a number of methodological limitations were noted which may have contributed towards some inconsistency of the findings. Further cross-cultural research is needed in order to be able to compare the effect of parenting styles more reliably.