Study finds parents keep a closer eye on daughters than sons
SUPAWADEE INTHAWONG
Most parents tend to not have a specific preference of the "gender" of their children. We often hear them saying they would love a daughter and a son equally.
However, in reality the child's gender often has an influence on how he or she would be reared by the parents. It is obvious a girl and a boy have some physical differences, and the parents naturally show a greater level of care for a daughter than a son. As a result, parents tend to keep a closer control on the daughters.
Orrathai Rhucharoenpornpanich and Aphichat Chamratrithirong are two researchers at the Institute for Population and Social Research of Mahidol University who have conducted a study under the "Thai Family Matters" project on the gender of the children and the parenting behaviour of the parents.
They sampled 420 Bangkok families that have a father or mother and an early teen of 13 or 14 years old. The families were interviewed on six aspects of the child rearing behaviour.
The study found that the Bangkok parents kept a tighter control on the daughters than on the sons and that the higher the parents' earnings are, the more likely they would spoil the children and the more likely the children would have an aggressive and delinquent behaviour.
The finding that the Bangkok parents tend to keep a closer eye on the daughters is similar to the findings of the earlier studies in other countries. Such differences in parenting behaviours may have a long-term effect on the "risky behaviours" of the child including alcohol drinking, drug abuse, aggression and delinquency, and certain sexual behaviours.
The study examined the parenting behaviour in six different aspects.
Monitoring and supervision - knowledge of whereabouts
The degree the parents are aware and able to control where the child is, who the child is with, and what the child is doing.
2. Monitoring and supervision - rules
The rule-setting of the parents on certain activities of the child such as drinking, partying, and interaction with the opposite sex.
3. Parental closeness and parent-child relations
The relationship and proximity of the parents and the child and the perception of each other's caring.
4. Communication with parents about sex
The communication of the parents on sex issues relevant to the age of the child such as condom use, Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, the importance of virginity (for girls), and the awareness of the significance of not impregnating a girl (for boys).
5. Parental disapproval of sex
The awareness of the children on the parents' prohibition and worries about early sex.
6. Parenting style
The style of the upbringing as categorised into the Permissive Parenting Style, the Authoritarian Parenting Style, and the Democratic Parenting Style.
The finding revealed that most sample families employed a combination of parenting styles but were more inclined to use the democratic method. The study found no significant relationship of the child's gender and the parenting style or the relationship of the child's awareness on parents' concerns on sex and the parenting style.
However, the study found that the parents with different education and economic statuses tend to employ different parenting styles.
Parents with a good educational background, as defined by having an associate degree or higher, are more likely to use the democratic parenting style than parents with a lower level of education.
The study also found that the parents with an income higher than 40,000 baht per family per month are more likely to employ the permissive style than the parents who have lower incomes. The children of the parents with higher income were found to be more likely to have aggressive and delinquent behaviours than the children of the low-income parents.
Further analysis of the data of the six parenting aspects found that the democratic parenting style and the high level of "Monitoring and supervision - knowledge of whereabouts" can together inhibit early sex of the children, while the authoritarian parenting and severe punishment tend to cause more aggression and delinquency of the children.
Project researcher Orrathai Rhucharoenpornpanich concluded that the study would be beneficial to the parents who can use it to develop their parenting. She also said the study showed that the less monitoring and supervision on the sons than the daughters may result in the sons more likely to engage in risky behaviours, falling under peer pressure, and becoming social problems.
On the other hand, the finding indicated that the overly strict rule-setting on the daughters may have a negative effect as it could result in the daughters engaging in risky sexual behaviours.
Orrathai said the parents should communicate to the children more on sex issues, regardless of their gender, as the finding suggested that the sampled parents could have engaged more on the talk on sex.
"The key purpose of this particular study is to enable the parents to develop skills on communication with their children, as it could prevent or reduce the chances that the children would engage in risky behaviours. Regardless of the gender, any child faces the same risks, so parents must pay attention to them closely," said Orrathai.
At the end of this year, the Thai Family Matters project, which is a joint effort of the Institute for Population and Social Research of Mahidol University and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, will conduct a following-up study with the use of the Family Guide Book by the families with early teens. The project will examine the effects of the guide book on the family communication and the parenting styles which would, in turn, have an effect on the reduction of the undesired risky behaviours.
"If the parents raised the children well, they would be less likely to engage in drugs, aggression and delinquency, and risky sexual behaviour. The project will provide a guide book to the parents of the experimental and control sample groups, in order to monitor how much the guide book would reduce the risky behaviours,"said the researcher.
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