Parent-child interactive style at home and social competence at school

This study aims to investigate differences in the mothers’, fathers’ and children’s interactive style at home and children’s social competence at school. 34 children (7-9 years) were observed at home and videotaped twice during 10 min free play dyadic interactions separately with their mother and father. Interactions were coded on global measures of positive, negative, controlling, disconfirming, correcting behaviors and neutral conversation. Sociometric techniques based on peer nominations were used to assess children’s behavioral orientations and social success at school. SSA projection of the mother’s and father’s behavioral categories with children’s peer status as external variables indicated that Rejection is located close of the behavioral category indicating a negative type of relationship both with mothers and fathers, while Popular and Average groups are located very close to both parents Positive behavior categories, and - only for Popular group - to mothers’ Neutral Conversation. This picture not emerged neither when the influence of mother-child and father- child relationships were considered separately nor when traditional statistical tests were used.