Does your child think you’re happy? Exploring the associations between children’s happiness and parenting styles

Alexandra Maftei, Andrei-Corneliu Holman and Elena-Roxana Cârlig

Children and Youth Services Review, 2020, vol. 115, issue C

Abstract: The present study aimed to explore children’s perception of their happiness, as well as their parents’, and to investigate their potential associations with parenting styles. The sample included 73 children (age range 5 to 8 years old, M = 6.57, SD = 1.06) and one of their parents (age range 29–47 years old, M = 36.45, SD = 4.08, 85% mothers). Parents filled in a parenting styles and dimensions questionnaire. We used The Faces Scale to assess children’s attributions of happiness, while a focused interview obtained spontaneous verbal descriptions of what made both children and their parents happy. We used both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore our data. Most children considered their compliance with family rules as parents’ main source of happiness. Family relationships and friendship were found to be the primary sources for children’s happiness. Correlation analyses suggested significant associations between children’s self-reported happiness, parents’ perceived happiness, and some of the permissive (lack of follow-through) and authoritarian (directiveness) parenting styles’ dimensions. These findings may be useful for both the development and implementation of positive socio-emotional programs during childhood, as well as for the general parent-child internal dynamic.

Keywords: Children; Happiness; Parenting styles; Perceived parental happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740920303212
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:115:y:2020:i:c:s0190740920303212

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105074

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().