A Comparison of Maternal Parenting Style Attitudes of Grandmothers and Mothers of Young Children in Taiwan: Development of a New Measure of Parenting Style.

Noting that previous study of child rearing patterns among Chinese parents has ignored the importance of the instrument measuring parenting style, this study used an instrument incorporating Chinese concepts of parenting and based on well-established parenting concepts to examine differences in the child rearing attitudes of mothers and grandmothers of 3- to 6-year-olds in Taiwan. Participating in the study were 53 grandmothers and 448 mothers randomly selected from 12 Taiwan kindergartens. The instrument used was the Maternal Parenting Style Questionnaire developed for this study and based on the constructs identified in Baumrind Parent Behavior Ratings. The findings revealed that although there were significant differences between the attitudes of grandmothers and mothers on parenting style, the attitudes of most grandmothers and mothers favored an authoritative parenting style over the authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved styles. Grandmothers parenting style was identified as more responsive than mothers style. There were no generational differences in demandingness. A small sample size for the grandmothers may have contributed to the results of this study. (Contains 47 references.) (KB)