DOI: 10.5176/2315-4330_WNC17.112
Authors: Weichao Yuwen, Angela Chia-Chen Chen
Abstract:
-This study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of Chinese immigrant parents’ parenting practices, parents’ perceived strengths and challenges in raising adolescent children in the United States and how their parenting may influence their adolescents’ psychological and behavioral health. Ten mothers and three fathers aged 35-56 participated in four focus groups interviews and filled out a brief survey. Parents had been in the U.S. for 20 years on average. Content analysis was used to analyze the interview data. We identified three themes (Parenting Styles, Struggling to Find an Eclectic Way, and Adolescent Health) and seven sub-themes (high expectations, strict control and monitoring, maintaining Chinese language and cultural values, assimilating the good from the U.S. culture, not finding a balanced point, not knowing how to communicate, and my child is suffering). Our findings highlight the unique challenges that Chinese immigrant parents encountered, how their parenting practices were shaped when parenting their adolescent children in a different sociocultural context, and how their parenting may influence their adolescent children’s health. Results of the study will help healthcare providers to develop linguistically and culturally tailored resources to enhance parenting skills and consequently promote psychosocial health among Chinese American adolescents..
Keywords: adolescence, Chinese immigrant, parenting styles, parent-child communication, health
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