Abstract
Research on Jamaican socialization of children has primarily focused on parental discipline practices. Little is known about children’s responses to parental attempts to control their behavior. The present study investigated mothers’ perceptions of children’s strategies for resisting their rules and requests. Thirty mothers living in Kingston and St. Andrew, Jamaica, participated in a 1- to 1.5-h semi-structured, open-ended interview regarding their 8- to 12-year-old children. Mothers reported that their children’s resistance strategies included assertive refusal, arguing, ignoring/avoiding, attitude, and negotiation. Most mothers disapproved of their children’s actions and responded with power-assertive strategies such as physical punishment, psychological control, forced compliance, and threats. Few mothers responded with autonomy support strategies including accommodation and reasoning. The findings provided insight into the ways Jamaican children use their agency to protect their autonomy despite their mothers’ greater power, and the relational nature of children’s influence on their mothers’ behaviors and reactions. More research is needed to expand our knowledge of child agency in Afro-Caribbean families and the various ways that parents may support their growing autonomy that is socially constructive.
Highlights
Research on Jamaican parent–child relationships is relatively new and encompasses questions concerning socialization processes (Chevannes, 2001; Leo-Rhynie and Brown, 2013), family structures (Leo-Rhynie, 1997), and parental control (Ricketts and Anderson, 2009; Smith et al, 2011)
The marital status of the sample is consistent with earlier findings that have shown that 84% of Jamaican children were born out of wedlock and most children born in wedlock were from the middle class (National Family Planning Board, 2008)
Previous research found that Jamaican parents use an authoritarian parenting style emphasizing obedience and harsh disciplinary consequences
Summary
Research on Jamaican parent–child relationships is relatively new and encompasses questions concerning socialization processes (Chevannes, 2001; Leo-Rhynie and Brown, 2013), family structures (Leo-Rhynie, 1997), and parental control (Ricketts and Anderson, 2009; Smith et al, 2011). There have been some reports of authoritative parenting styles (Lipps et al, 2012), most studies suggest that Jamaican parents have been found to have an authoritarian parenting style, characterized by values that favor strict obedience from children and harsh, punitive discipline (UNICEF, 2010; Burke and Sutherland, 2014). Affluent parents with a higher level of education were found to use less punitive approaches that included the removal of privileges and reasoning (Ricketts and Anderson, 2009), while others have recognized the benefits of child-centered responses that consider children’s needs and perspectives (Burke and Sutherland, 2014)
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