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Background
Keywords
Findings
Authors
What is already known on this subject?
What does this study add?

Background

The effect of parenting behaviours is important in child health and development research.  This study evaluates three child-reported parenting behaviour scales (nurturance, rejection and monitoring) in the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). 

Data and methods

The sample consisted of two longitudinal cohorts (n = 1,164) who were interviewed at ages 10 to 11, 12 to 13, and 14 to 15.  The factor structure of each scale was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis with weighted least squares estimation on polychoric correlation matrices.

Results

The 7-item NLSCY Parental Nurturance model appeared to be a good fit to the data for children aged 10 to 11 and 12 to 13, but not for those aged 14 to 15.  The 7-item Parental Rejection model was not a good fit to the data across any of the three time points.  The 5-item Parental Monitoring model was a good fit to the data across all three time points.  Removal of one item from the nurturance and one item from the monitoring scale improved the fit to the data.

Interpretation

The revised models appeared to be useful in assessing parental nurturance and monitoring.  The model for parental rejection was not confirmed for this sample of adolescents.

Keywords

child-rearing, data analysis, factor analysis, parent-child relations, questionnaires, rejection, validation studies

Findings

Research has demonstrated significant relationships between parenting behaviours and child health and development.  For example, low parental nurturance and high parental rejection have been associated with anxiety, property offence and hyperactivity-inattention problems in adolescence.  But despite the considerable number of studies, relatively little is known about the quality of measures based on child-reported parenting behaviours.  In the absence of empirically validated measures, it is possible that some findings reflect spurious associations.  This analysis addresses that gap by evaluating the factor structure of the child-reported parenting scales in Statistics Canada's National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). [Full text]

Author

Rübab G. Arım (613-951-0194; Rubab.Arim@statcan.gc.ca) is with the Health Analysis Division at Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0T6; Jennifer D. Shapka, V. Susan Dahinten and Brent F. Olson are with the University of British Columbia.

What is already known on this subject?

  • Analyses based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth data (NLSCY) often include child-reported parenting behaviours as risk or protective factors.
  • Little is known about the quality of the NLSCY parenting behaviour scales, as no studies have assessed their validity.

What does this study add?

  • The 5-item Parental Monitoring model was a good fit to the data.
  • The 7-item NLSCY Parental Nurturance model was a good fit to the data for children aged 10 to 11 and 12 to 13, but not for 14- to 15-year-olds. 
  • The 7-item Parental Rejection model was not a good fit to the data; consequently, the model was not confirmed for the sample of adolescents in the study.  
  • Removal of one item from the Parental Monitoring scale and one item from the Parental Nurturance scale improved the fit to the data.
  • Use of the revised models is recommended for research exploring relationships between parenting behaviour and child outcomes.