| This study investigated the relationship between two aspects of parenting style, acceptance and control, and children's hostility/aggression, in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disordered (AD/HD) children. Four parenting styles were anticipated: authoritarian, authoritative, neglectful-permissive, and indulgent-permissive. It was hypothesized that children from authoritative parenting would exhibit the lowest amount of aggression and best behavioral/emotional functioning, followed by children from the indulgent-permissive group. Children from the neglectful-permissive group would fare less well than these two, and those from the authoritarian group would demonstrate the highest amount of aggression and worst behavioral/emotional functioning. Furthermore, parents and children were expected to agree as to parenting and aggression; when there was discrepancy, children's views were expected to prevail. This was a two group, quasi-experimental between subjects design. The participants were 81 boys and girls ages 8.0 to 13.11, and their respective mothers. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficients were used to determine the agreement among perceptions of mothers and their children on acceptance/rejection, permissive/strict control, aggression/hostility, and impaired behavioral/emotional functioning. Exploration of data resulted in only two parenting styles, indulgent-permissive parenting and authoritative parenting, because rejection was not found. Both groups were within the acceptance portion of the acceptance/rejection continuum and varied only on the permissive/strict control continuum. Mean differences between these two groups were analyzed inferentially using an Independent-Samples t-test on the dependent measures of childhood aggression, hostility, and overall behavioral/emotional functioning. Results were counter to expectations. Authoritative parenting resulted in significantly greater aggression than indulgent-permissive parenting, and this was consistent whether groups were defined by mothers or by children. Impaired behavioral/emotional functioning was found to be significantly greater in the authoritative parenting group as defined by children; as defined by mothers, the groups merely demonstrated a trend in this direction. The last hypothesis was partially supported. Control was viewed similarly by mothers and children; acceptance/rejection showed a trend in that direction. Mothers and children did not agree on aggression and hostility, but did agree on overall behavioral/emotional functioning. However, acceptance/rejection was more related to childhood aggression and functioning than control, and there was little difference between mothers, and children's views in terms of degree of relationship between the variables. Furthermore, children saw a relationship between acceptance and control, though mothers did not; that is, the greater the degree of control perceived by the child, the less accepted he/she felt. |