The relationship between parenting style and mother-daughter communication

Abstract

Parenting style including the amount and content of communication between parents and children have a great impact on the development of adolescent personality and the formation of healthy or unhealthy behaviors in them. This study aimed at examining the relationship between parenting style and mother-adolescent daughter communication. Present study was conducted on 363 female students at high school level (14-18 years old) selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method in Ahwaz, Iran. The research instruments included the Persian version of Baumrind’s Parenting Style Questionnaire and Mother-Daughter Communication Scale. The data were analyzed using the SPSS software version 21 and the Spearman test. The majority (63%) of adolescent girls had an average level of communication with their mothers. The level of their communication had only a significant relationship with the permissive parenting style and girls whose mothers had permissive styles had lower levels of communication. Permissive mothers were less likely to successfully establish a communication with their adolescent daughters.