Young Children’s Risk-Taking: Mothers’ Authoritarian Parenting Predicts Risk-Taking by Daughters but Not Sons

Abstract

We investigated how mothers' parenting behaviors and personal characteristics were related to risk-taking by young children. We tested contrasting predictions from evolutionary and social role theories with the former predicting higher risk-taking by boys compared to girls and the latter predicting that mothers would influence children's gender role development with risk-taking occurring more in children parented with higher levels of harshness (i.e., authoritarian parenting style). In our study, mothers reported their own gender roles and parenting styles as well as their children's risk-taking and activities related to gender roles. The results were only partially consistent with the two theories, as the amount of risk-taking by sons and daughters did not differ significantly and risk-taking by daughters, but not sons, was positively related to mothers' use of the authoritarian parenting style and the girls' engagement in masculine activities. Risk-taking by sons was not predicted by any combination of motherrelated variables. Overall, mothers who were higher in femininity used more authoritative and less authoritarian parenting styles. Theoretical implications as well as implications for predicting and reducing children's risk-taking are discussed.

Early school-age family meal characteristics matter for the later development of boys and girls

“…Parental approaches to socialization of emotion and engagement in flexible-democratic instead of authoritarian styles are more likely with daughters than sons. Parents also have harsher, controlling, and affectively negative interactions with daughters, than with sons [ 15 ]. These patterns suggest that from early childhood onward, daughters are more strongly influenced by specific aspects of child-rearing and its concomitant family environment than sons [ 16 ].…”

The Influence of Authoritarian Parenting on the Development of Early Childhood Creativity

“…The way parents take care of their children has an impact on the development of the child's personality, social interactions (including children's creativity), and from close relationships with significant others (Mahasneh, Zohair, Omar, & Mohammad, 2013). Many problems of internationalization and externalization in boys and girls are related to authoritarian parenting (Akhtar, Malik, & Begeer, 2016;Braza et al, 2013;Calzada, Barajas-Gonzalez, Huang & Brotman, 2017;Cheung, 2014Clark, Dahlen, & Nicholson, 2015Hartman et al, 2015;King, Vidourek, & Merianos, 2016;Moed, Gershoff, & Bringewatt, 2016;Pellerone, Tolini, & Polopoly, 2016;Tavassolie, et al, 2016;Wood & Kennison, 2017;Yaffe, 2017).…”

The Evolving Parent: Outline of the Evolution of Parenting Styles

“…This is the style we all want to be, setting limits and forming rules with consequences that we always follow through with explaining to your kids along the way. Most research in parenting [12][13][14][15][16] Now when your kids look at you and explain what they did wrong before you even have to say anything then you get to move on to the next phase of parenting, permissive parenting. When I suggest permissive parenting, I am mainly highlighting the idea of saying one thing and then expecting another.…”

“…You just keep explaining until they get it and that could be more times than your frustration level can handle. No one said it would be easy, but if you stay strong and build this moral foundation you are paving the way for your child to live a successful life[3,[12][13][14][15][16].…”