Chinese-American parents are parenting within two cultures: the mainstream American culture and their heritage Chinese culture. This study examined parental cultural orientations toward the American and Chinese cultures, and the implications for parenting practices among Chinese-American families. Parenting dimensions examined were both culture-general measures (parental warmth, punitive parenting, non-democratic parenting) and culture-specific measure (parental endorsement of family obligations). Data came from a two-wave survey of about 400 Chinese-American families (one target adolescent, mother, and father). First, within each wave, the study examined the concurrent relationships between parenting practices and adolescent depressive symptoms. Second, this study examined, concurrently and longitudinally, whether parental cultural orientations were associated with parenting practices both directly and indirectly through two mediating factors: parents' bicultural management difficulty and depressive symptoms. Analyses were conducted separately for mothers and fathers. First, study findings showed that parenting practices characterized by higher levels of warmth, strong endorsement of family obligations, and lower levels of punitive and non-democratic behaviors were associated with fewer depressive symptoms in adolescents. Second, the study demonstrated significant direct relationships between both Chinese and American orientations and parenting practices. While American orientation was related to effective parenting (more warmth, low punitiveness, low non-democratic parenting), Chinese orientation was related to effective parenting (more warmth, low non-democratic parenting, strong endorsement of family obligations) as well as ineffective parenting (high punitiveness). This study also showed that parents' bicultural management difficulty and depressive symptoms mediated the relationships between acculturation and culture-general parenting measures (warmth, punitiveness, and nondemocratic parenting). It was through these two mediators (bicultural management difficulty and parental depressive symptoms) that (1) Chinese orientation was related to less warmth, high punitive and non-democratic parenting and (2) American orientation was related to more warmth, low punitive and non-democratic parenting. Lastly, there was some evidence of longitudinal relationships (father's American orientation at w1 predicted more warmth at w2; mother's American orientation at w1 predicted low punitiveness at w2 through the mediating factors of bicultural management difficulty and depressive symptoms at w1). The study suggests that parental psychological maladjustment is a promising area for interventions to promote parenting and adolescent development among ChineseAmerican families.

Theoretical models of parenting that explain parenting behaviors (e.g., Belsky's (1984) model) generally lack consideration of cultural variables among various ethnic groups, particularly Chinese Americans. One such concept is guan that literally means training (Chao, 1994) (or called training parenting attitude in the present study). Moreover, literature has shown that acculturation and family socioeconomic status significantly influence parenting attitudes and behaviors pertaining to various forms of punitive parenting, namely, authoritarian parenting, corporal punishment, and child physical abuse among the Chinese American population. The training parenting attitude (as a culture-specific parenting attitude) and disciplinary belief (as a traditional parenting attitude) are taken into consideration in the proposed theoretical models of parenting for Chinese Americans.One hundred and seventeen Chinese American mothers who have at least one child in the age range of 4 to 12 years old participated in this study. Structural equation modeling was used to test viable models of punitive parenting. Results indicated that the originally proposed primary model was incorrectly specified. The primary model was then respecified and re-estimated by eliminating the unreliable measures and correlating between the error terms of some observed variables. Consistent with the theory of planned behavior, results indicated that Chinese American mothers with favorable attitudes toward authoritarian parenting were more likely to engage in authoritarian parenting behavior. However, neither acculturation nor family socioeconomic status was found to significantly influence either parenting attitudes or behaviors pertaining to authoritarian parenting. Discriminant function analysis was performed to predict thelevels of engagement (i.e., presence or absence) in corporal punishment and physical abuse from a set of predictors. Findings revealed that only the discriminant function for corporal punishment was significant. Authoritarian parenting and disciplinary belief were found to be the most significant predictors of the levels of engagement in corporal punishment.Further research is needed to explore the predictors for the engagement in authoritarian parenting, corporal punishment, and child physical abuse among the Chinese American population. In addition, professionals should interpret parenting behaviors in terms of the cultural meaning of Chinese American parents. Finally, the limitations of the present study include the lack of access to a diversified sample, self-report bias, low reliabilities of some measures, and the weaknesses of structural equation modeling along with discriminant function analysis. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services