The Characteristics of Paternal and Maternal Involvement in Adolescents' Upbringing and the Related Factors

In order to understand the status of parental involvement in adolescents' upbringing, the revised Questionnaire of Adolescents Appraising Parental Involvement Behavior was used to investigate 2370 primary and secondary school students in China. The results are as follows. Fathers and mothers demonstrate basically similar patterns of parental involvement, namely the highest level of discipline and reprimand, the middle level of childcare and schoolwork support, and the lowest level of emotion and leisure. Maternal involvement is significantly higher than paternal involvement, both in general and on the four sub-dimensions (discipline and reprimand, childcare, schoolwork support, and emotion and leisure). Adolescents of different genders show a significant difference in the influence on parental involvement. Maternal involvement in childcare, emotion and leisure, and discipline and reprimand for girls is significantly higher than that for boys; paternal involvement in discipline and reprimand and schoolwork support for boys is significantly higher than that for girls. Both paternal and maternal involvement significantly decrease with the growth of adolescents. Both paternal and maternal involvement for only children are significantly higher than that for non-only children. The higher the family's subjective socio-economic status is, the greater the parental involvement is.