Inconsistency in Parenting Between Mothers and Fathers and Children's Behaviour Problems

Inconsistency in parenting between parents was investigated in a longitudinal prospective study with regard to children's problem behavior. As part of the Erlangen-Nuremberg Development and Prevention Study (Losel et al., 2006) 504 parents together with their children were studied; the average age of the child was 6.6 years. The self-reported parenting behavior of mothers and fathers was based on the two basic dimensions emotional warmth and rejection/punishment operationalized through a questionnaire developed by Jaursch (2003). The children's externalizing and internalizing behavior was assessed two years later with the Social Behavior Questionnaire by Tremblay er al. (1992). The data was analyzed within a variable-centered moderator approach as well as within a typological group comparison approach. There were significant correlations between parental inconsistency and the child's problem behavior in both approaches. These correlations were especially high for harsh-punitive parenting and the child's antisocial behavior as well as for the overall problem behavior. In the case of inconsistency in parenting, the positive parenting of one parent was not able to compensate for the negative parenting of the other parent. It was also shown that consistency in parenting does not only reveal positive effects, also negative effects were possible. This was true for those mothers and fathers who displayed a punishing together with a rejecting parenting.