Intergenerational Transmission of Effortful Control in Families With School-Age Children in Korea

This study examined the extent to which mothers' and fathers' effortful control influenced the development of their children's effortful control and subsequent academic adjustment directly and indirectly through parenting behaviors, using 2-wave panel data on 297 school-age children (159 girls, ages 10-11 at Time 1 [T1] and 12-13 years at Time 2 [T2]) and their parents in Korea. Mothers and fathers independently reported on their own effortful control and parenting behaviors at T1. Children's effortful control was assessed with both parents' reports and a behavioral task done by children at T1. Children reported on their perceived academic adjustment at T2. Overall, Korean parents' effortful control was positively associated with warm/supportive parenting behaviors and negatively associated with harsh/controlling parenting behaviors. However, Korean mothers and fathers appeared to play different roles in shaping their children's effortful control. Specifically, only mothers' effortful control was directly associated with children's effortful control. Further, mothers' effortful control influenced their children's effortful control partly through their positive parenting behaviors, which subsequently led to children's academic adjustment 2 years later. On the other hand, fathers' effortful control influenced children's effortful control through their own negative parenting behavior and mothers' positive parenting behavior, which was not linked to children's academic adjustment. The results suggest that efforts to facilitate mothers' positive parenting behavior and to reduce fathers' negative parenting behavior can be promising targets in intervention programs to facilitate the adaptive development of school-age children in Korea.