Developmental Trajectories of Parental Psychological Control and Supportive Parenting in Chinese Early Adolescents: Relations to Internalizing and Externalizing Problems.

Abstract

Previous research suggests that parenting may change with children's age, yet few studies have explored the heterogeneous developmental trajectories of parental psychological control and supportive parenting during early adolescence, and their implications for adolescent adjustment. This study employed a longitudinal accelerated design, with 4731 Chinese students from two cohorts (Grades 4 and 5; 44.9% girls; M = 10.91 years, SD = 0.72) assessed at four time points. Latent class growth modeling identified four trajectories of psychological control (increasing-decreasing, decreasing-increasing, high-stable, and low-stable) and three trajectories of supportive parenting (continually low, continually moderate, and continually high). Significant differences in internalizing and externalizing problems were found across the identified parenting trajectories. These findings underscore the importance of capturing heterogeneity in parenting patterns to better understand their developmental course and implications for adolescent mental health.