Although various theories describe mechanisms leading to differential parenting of boys and girls, there is no consensus about the extent to which parents do treat their sons and daughters differently. The last meta-analyses on the subject were conducted more than fifteen years ago, and changes in gender-specific child rearing in the past decade are quite plausible. In the current set of meta-analyses, based on 126 observational studies (15,034 families), we examined mothers’ and fathers’ differential use of autonomy-supportive and controlling strategies with boys and girls, and the role of moderators related to the decade in which the study was conducted, the observational context, and sample characteristics. Databases of Web of Science, ERIC, PsychInfo, Online Contents, Picarta, and Proquest were searched for studies examining differences in observed parental control of boys and girls between the ages of 0 and 18 years. Few differences were found in parents’ use of control with boys and girls. Parents were slightly more controlling with boys than with girls, but the effect size was negligible (d = 0.08). The effect was larger, but still small, in normative groups and in samples with younger children. No overall effect for gender-differentiated autonomy-supportive strategies was found (d = 0.03). A significant effect of time emerged: studies published in the 1970s and 1980s reported more autonomy-supportive strategies with boys than toward girls, but from 1990 onwards parents showed somewhat more autonomy-supportive strategies with girls than toward boys. Taking into account parents’ gender stereotypes might uncover subgroups of families where gender-differentiated control is salient, but based on our systematic review of the currently available large data base we conclude that in general the differences between parenting of boys versus girls are minimal.

Quantification of cortisol in scalp hair seems a promising measurement for long-term cortisol levels, and thereby a biomarker for stress. We examined hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) in children when first entering elementary school. Participants were 42 children (45% boys) with a mean age of 4.2 years (SD = 0.42 months). Hair samples (≥5 cm) were collected 2 months after school entry. Hair analysis was conducted using two 2-cm long segments, reflecting the first 2 months of school attendance (the scalp-near segment) and 2 months prior to school entry. HCC were higher after school entry than before, especially for fearful children. Alterations in HCC were not moderated by experience in group daycare before school entry. Thus, HCC suggest that starting elementary school is accompanied by increased stress hormone levels in young (in particular fearful) children.

This longitudinal study examines the association between child gender and child aggression via parents' physical control, moderated by parents' gender-role stereotypes in a sample of 299 two-parent families with a 3-year-old child in the Netherlands. Fathers with strong stereotypical gender-role attitudes and mothers were observed to use more physical control strategies with boys than with girls, whereas fathers with strong counterstereotypical attitudes toward gender roles used more physical control with girls than with boys. Moreover, when fathers had strong attitudes toward gender roles (stereotypical or counterstereotypical), their differential treatment of boys and girls completely accounted for the gender differences in children's aggressive behavior a year later. Mothers' gender-differentiated parenting practices were unrelated to gender differences in child aggression.Higher levels of aggressive behavior in boys than in girls represent one of the most pronounced gender differences found in the literature on child development (Archer, 2004;Hyde, 1984;Loeber, Capaldi, & Costello, 2013). It has been suggested that in addition to potential biological and evolutionary influences (Archer, 2004), these gender differences may arise because of parental differential treatment of boys and girls (Chaplin, Cole, & ZahnWaxler, 2005;Mandara, Murray, Telesford, Varner, & Richman, 2012). Parents' gender-role attitudes might play a role in the differential treatment of their sons and daughters (Bem, 1981;Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000), but this mechanism has rarely been studied. Therefore, the current study examined the longitudinal associations between mothers' and fathers' gender-role attitudes, gender-differentiated use of physical control strategies, and gender differences in child aggression. Social role theory and gender schema theory provide rationales for differential parenting of boys and girls, and for the link between gender-differentiated parenting and differences in aggressive behavior of boys and girls (Bem, 1981;Eagly et al., 2000). Social Role TheoryAccording to social role theory (Eagly et al., 2000), gender differences in social behavior arise from prevailing divisions of gender roles in societies, in which women are viewed as homemakers and men as economic providers. This division is still visible in present-day societies; mothers are more likely to be the primary caregivers of young children (Huerta et al., 2013; The Fatherhood Institute, 2010), women are overrepresented in educational and nurturing occupations, and men are overrepresented in occupations that are associated with power, physical strength, status, and agentic personality characteristics (i.e., management, engineering; U.S. Department of Labor, 2012).It is proposed that these gender roles lead to stereotypical ideas and expectations about the different nature and behavior of men and women (i.e., gender stereotypes), which lead to differential treatment of men and women, and boys and girls, which in turn leads to gender differences in behav...

This article reviews and integrates research on gender-related biological, cognitive, and social processes that take place in or between family members, resulting in a newly developed gendered family process (GFP) model. The GFP model serves as a guiding framework for research on gender in the family context, calling for the integration of biological, social, and cognitive factors. Biological factors in the model are prenatal, postnatal, and pubertal androgen levels of children and parents, and genetic effects on parent and child gendered behavior. Social factors are family sex composition (i.e., parent sex, sexual orientation, marriage status, sibling sex composition) and parental gender socialization, such as modeling, gender-differentiated parenting, and gender talk. Cognitive factors are implicit and explicit gender-role cognitions of parents and children. Our review and the GFP model confirm that gender is an important organizer of family processes, but also highlight that much is still unclear about the mechanisms underlying gender-related processes within the family context. Therefore, we stress the need for (1) longitudinal studies that take into account the complex bidirectional relationship between parent and child gendered behavior and cognitions, in which within-family comparisons (comparing behavior of parents toward a boy and a girl in the same family) are made instead of between-family comparisons (comparing parenting between all-boy families and all-girl families, or between mixed-gender families and same-gender families), (2) experimental studies on the influence of testosterone on human gender development, (3) studies examining the interplay between biology with gender socialization and gender-role cognitions in humans.

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