Culture, parenting, and child behavioral problems

Little is known about the interplay of cultural, parenting, and sociodemographic/socioeconomic factors on children's behavioral problems, especially within culturally mixed families in Chinese society. This study compares the presence of behavioral problems between children from families with an immigrant mother and those from native-born families in a randomly selected sample of 957 children aged 6 to 12 years from three counties in central Taiwan. Behavioral problems were assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist completed by parents and the Teacher's Report Form. Parenting styles were assessed using the Parental Bonding Instrument completed by children. Children of immigrant mothers had higher scores for all behavioral syndromes based on the parent's report. However, in the teacher's report a difference was only observed for withdrawn/depressed syndrome. Children of immigrant mothers were more likely, and children with high paternal care were less likely, to have internalizing and total problems in the parent's report. For the teacher's report, only high education in fathers was associated with decreased internalizing and total problems in children. These findings suggest that children growing up in a cross-cultural environment with an immigrant mother, as opposed to a native-born Taiwanese family environment, are more likely to have higher internalizing problems and total behavioral problem scores, due to a number of cultural, parenting, and sociodemographic factors. Children's behaviors appear to be more influenced by fathers’ than mothers’ parenting styles, regardless of family type. The study findings imply that unequal health and social conditions exist between cross-cultural and native-born families.