Parenting styles and peer relations across early childhood through early adolescence in Taiwan

The study examined the roles of child characteristics (cohort and sex) and maternal parenting styles (support, involvement, harsh control, and monitoring) for predicting child peer relations (intimacy, isolation, and aggression) across early childhood through early adolescence. Multilevel modeling was used to fit the model using a large, longitudinal data set of Chinese families. Peer intimacy increased across the five years, whereas peer isolation and aggression decreased over time. The older cohort reported more intimacy initially but had smaller increases than the younger cohort across time. In contrast, the older cohort reported more isolation initially and had larger decreases than the younger cohort. Girls reported more intimacy initially and had larger increases than boys across time. In contrast, boys had larger decreases in isolation than girls. Boys reported more aggression initially but had smaller increases than girls. Maternal support predicted peer intimacy. Maternal involvement and monitoring negatively predicted peer isolation. Maternal harsh control positively predicted peer isolation and aggression initially, and predicted changes in aggression across time. These findings support previous research using Western samples.