PARENTING AND BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS IN ASIAN FAMILIES
This chapter focuses on parenting and behavior problems of children and adolescents in Asian families. The chapter begins with a consideration of ethnotheories regarding parents’ understandings of children’s adaptive and problematic behaviors as well as how to manage those behaviors before considering Asian cultural values in relation to parenting. The chapter then focuses on parenting styles, parental discipline, and parental monitoring as central ways that parents influence their children’s adaptive behaviors and behavior problems. Harsh verbal discipline and corporal punishment are associated with more child behavior problems in Asian countries, whereas inductive forms of discipline, such as reasoning, are related to fewer child behavior problems. Parental monitoring is generally a protective factor that decreases children’s behavior problems and is nuanced in Asian families by cultural values that endorse the legitimacy of parental authority. The chapter next considers implications for practice and policy, suggests directions for future research, and concludes.
