Positive parenting: parental affect, control and justice towards siblings’ dyads and their relationships with adolescent children’s socio-emotional problems

Abstract

When approaching positive parenting behaviors, the perception that children have of their parents’ differential relations towards each sibling is overlooked. In this study, the objectives were to analyse siblings’ differences in externalizing and internalizing problems as well as to analyse the relationship between the affect, control and justice of the parents’ behaviors, the adjustment between affect and control, and adolescents’ siblings externalizing and internalizing problems. Participants were 111 pairs of siblings (N = 222), in which the oldest sibling was 15,18 years old on average, while the youngest sibling was 12,85 years old on average. The subscales of affect and control of the Sibling Inventory of Differential Experience (SIDE), ad-hoc measures of parental justice towards each child and the externalizing and internalizing problem measures of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) were used. Results showed that the oldest siblings had higher mean scores in internalizing problems while the youngest siblings had higher mean scores in externalizing problems. The higher the maternal control towards her oldest child compared to the youngest one, the more the externalizing and internalizing problems of this oldest child. In the oldest siblings, the parents’ affect-control adjustment related to less externalizing problems, and the mother’s affect-control adjustment related to less internalizing problems. Maternal treatment perceived as fairer towards her children related to less internalizing and externalizing problems of the youngest child, while the father’s affect-control adjustment related to less internalizing problems in their youngest child. These results contribute to our knowledge about the differential impact that positive parenting has when parents have two adolescent children.