Parenting and Temperament Influence on School Success in 9-13 Year Olds.

Purificación Checa,Alicia Abundis-Gutierrez

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00543

Purificación Checa, Alicia Abundis-Gutierrez

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00543

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Abstract

Children spend a lot of time with their parents who are the first agents that educate them. The parenting style implemented in the family influences other contexts outside home such as the school. There is evidence that a positive parenting style has an influence on school success. However, there are other variables related to school success, for example, temperament. The influence of parenting decreases with age as children develop abilities to self-regulate without parents' external control. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the contribution of parenting style and temperament in 9–13 years old children on both academic performance and school adjustment skills. Our hypothesis was that not only parenting style is crucial to academic performance and school adjustment, but also temperament plays an important role in them. We used a Parenting Guide line questionnaire to evaluate parenting style, Early Adolescence Temperament Questionnaire-R to evaluate temperament; Health Resources Inventory to assess children's school adjustment, and academic grades, as indicator of academic performance. We were interested in testing whether or not the effect of parenting style on academic performance and school adjustment was mediated by temperament. We found that emotional and behavioral regulation mediates the relation between parenting and academic performance. These findings inform of the relevance of child's temperament on school success. Implications for education are discussed with emphasis on the importance of understanding students' temperament to promote school adjustment and good academic performance.

Highlights

Parents, teachers, and the educational community, among other agents involved in the academic achievement of children and adolescents, are interested in knowing which variables affect school success
There was a positive relation between Effortful Control (EC) and Sensitive Parenting Style (SPS), rule following (RF), student-role understanding (SRU), and to frustration (TF), indicating that children with high EC had less coercive and more sensitive parents, achieved higher grades in school and perceived themselves to be competent in RF, SRU, and TF
For Coercive Parenting Style (CPS) (Tables 3–5) we observed that the total effect of CPS on academic performance (AP) (b = −0.16, p = 0.027), RF (b = −0.18, p = 0.010) and SRU (b = −0.16, p = 0.026) were non-significant when EC were included in the model as mediator (AP: b = −0.04, p = 0.515, RF: b = −0.10, p = 0.166, SRU: b = −0.06, p = 0.360)

Summary

Introduction

Teachers, and the educational community, among other agents involved in the academic achievement of children and adolescents, are interested in knowing which variables affect school success. Different patterns of PS have shown different associations with school success: PS based on warmth while maintain a structure and guidelines in the parent-child relationship is associated with academic achievement (Steinberg et al, 1989, 1992; Shute et al, 2011; Walker and MacPhee, 2011), whereas PS based on restrictive control or inconsistency is associated with low grades (Hillstrom, 2009; Parsasirat et al, 2013; Osorio and Gonzalez-Cámara, 2016). It has been shown that PS based on warmth and discipline is related to less externalized problems in children (Eisenberg et al, 2005), while children that have negligent or excessively controlling parents are more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior and more externalized problems (Vitaro et al, 2006; Walker and MacPhee, 2011; Weis et al, 2016)

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