...parenting practices (Shek, 1995). contrast, there are different cultural beliefs and mass media images in which the socialization practices of fathers and mothers are described to be different (e.g., Lamb, 1987). There are even claims that blame mothers but not fathers for their parenting characteristics in shaping childhood and adolescent psychological problems (Caplan, 1986; Caplan & Hall-McCorquodale, 1985). As such, there is a need to examine whether parental differences in parenting processes actually occur in reality and whether scientific findings are consistent with the popular beliefs and mass media images. Practically speaking, research findings on parental differences in parenting and parent-child relational processes have implications for how parenting styles and parent-child relationships can be improved (Shek, 2000).

With reference to gender differences in parenting, most of the existing Western studies focus mainly on gender differences in parenting during infancy, early childhood, and middle childhood, and there are comparatively fewer studies related to adolescence (Collins & Russell, 1991; Lamb, 1987). In addition, the conclusions drawn from such studies are equivocal, and support for the common belief that there is more warmth and responsiveness in mother-child interactions than in father-child interactions is not strong (Collins & Russell, 1991; Russell & Russell, 1987, 1989). Although there are studies that show no parental differences in parenting (e.g., Baumrind, 1991a; Dubois, Eitel, & Felner, 1994; Paulson, 1994; Stice & Barrera, 1995), there are others that show that there are parental differences involved (Baumrind, 1991b; Forehand & Nousiainen, 1993).

One possible factor that contributes to the equivocal findings pertinent to parental differences in parenting is that different indicators were in fact utilized in different studies, and few researchers have utilized multiple indicators of parenting processes in a single study. In response to this situation, multiple indicators related to parenting processes were employed in the present study with reference to the concept of parental control (behavioral control and psychological control) and parent-child relational qualities.

A review of the literature shows that there are different conceptions pertaining to different dimensions of parenting (e.g., Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Amongst these conceptualizations, parental control is a dimension that is widely used to describe the nature of parenting. However, although the dimension of parental control has been used frequently in the existing models of parenting and related research, a number of researchers have argued that it is necessary to differentiate different types of parental control (Barber, 1996, 2002; Steinberg, 1990). Basically, two types of parental control have been identified. The first type is psychological control that refers to "parents' attempt to control the child's activities in ways that negatively affect the child's psychological world and thereby undermines the child's psychological development" (Smetana & Daddis, 2002, p. 563). Examples of psychological control include constraining verbal expression, invalidating feelings, personal attack, guilt induction, love withdrawal, and erratic emotional behavior. The second type of parental control is behavioral control that refers to "rules, regulations, and restrictions that parents have for their children" (Smetana & Daddis, 2002, p. 563). Barber (1996) pointed out that psychological control is a "neglected construct" in parenting and that "there is little research specifically measuring psychological control and its covariates" (p. 3313).

With specific reference to the concept of behavioral control, an examination of the related studies shows that this construct has been commonly conceptualized in terms of parental monitoring (e.g., Pettit, Laird, Dodge, Bates, & Criss, 2001; Smetana & Daddis, 2002). However, monitoring means surveillance and/or tracking (Dishion & McMahon, 1998), yet it has been commonly measured in terms of parental knowledge of children's activities (Crouter & Head, 2002; Kerr & Stattin, 2000). Stattin and Kerr (2000) argued that parental monitoring (i.e., surveillance) is different from parental knowledge of children's activities because parental knowledge does not necessarily involve monitoring activities, and children's voluntary disclosure of information is crucial. Conceptually speaking, there is a need to recognize the multidimensional nature of parental behavioral control (Smetana & Daddis, 2002) and to differentiate parental monitoring and parental knowledge of children's activities. An integration of the existing research findings shows that at least five different aspects of parental behavioral control (i.e., parental attempt to control and manage the child's behavior) should be differentiated: (1) parental knowledge (i.e., how much the parent knows about the situation of the child); (2) parental expectations (i.e., parental rules and expectations of the parent); (3) parental monitoring (i.e., parental surveillance and tracking and whether the parent takes initiative to understand the child); (4) parental discipline (reward and punishment of the child in relation to parental expectations); and (5) global parental demandingness, based on the existing models of parenting (e.g., Maccoby & Martin, 1983).

Furthermore, in an examination of the research direction of parental behavioral control, Stattin and Kerr (2001) argued that it is important to examine mutual trust between parents and their children and children's readiness to communicate with the parents. Unfortunately, these aspects were generally neglected in the literature. Rotenberg (1995) remarked that "despite the apparent importance of socialization of trust, it has received little empirical attention" (p. 713), and Noack, Kerr, and Olah (1999) commented that "trust in the family has never really attracted scholarly attention" (p. 714). Crouter and Head (2002) also criticized that "many studies of parental monitoring or knowledge have examined possible antecedents without reference to the quality of the parent-child relationship" (p. 473). In addition, whether the child is satisfied with the parental control of the parents is another important dimension to be considered. In short, mutual trust between parents and adolescents, child's readiness to communicate with the parents, and child's satisfaction with parental control are also important dimensions through which differences in parental behavioral control should be examined.

There are four other limitations of the available literature on parental differences in parental control and parent-child relational qualities. First, few researchers have examined paternal and maternal control processes separately. With reference to parental monitoring and knowledge, Crouter and Head (2002) pointed out that "it is so unfortunate that so many studies fail to distinguish between maternal and paternal monitoring or knowledge. Much of what we know about parental monitoring blurs the identity of the parents by referring not to mothers and fathers, but to generic 'parents'" (p. 474).

Second, a survey of the literature shows that the questions of whether male adolescents and female adolescents have different perceptions of paternal and maternal parenting characteristics and how such differences interact with parents (fathers vs. mothers) have not been adequately addressed in the literature. In some studies (e.g., Paulson & Sputa, 1996), gender of the adolescent children was not separately analyzed. In those studies in which the gender of adolescent children was included in the analysis, some researchers found no gender differences in the perceptions of parenting characteristics (e.g., Forehand & Nousiainen, 1993; Smetana, 1995), whereas others have found a main effect of gender of children (e.g., Baumrind,...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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