Maternal and Paternal Parenting, Acculturation, and Young Adolescents' Psychological Adjustment in Korean American Families

PROBLEM: Maintaining healthy psychological adjustment may be more complicated for Korean American young adolescents than for their European American counterparts. Korean American families live in sum of two units cultures and the issue of acculturation challenges their parenting, which is a critical factor for young adolescents' psychological adjustment.

METHODS: Hierarchical multiple regressions were used to analyze 106 family data (young adolescents, mothers, and fathers) upon parenting (acceptance-rejection and behavioral control) acculturation (integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization), and young adolescents' psychological adjustment.

FINDINGS: sole young adolescents' reports of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection were related to their report of psychological adjustment. However, maternal acculturation moderated the relation between mothers' reports of maternal acceptance-rejection and behavioral direction and young adolescents' report of their psychological adjustment.

CONCLUSIONS: Parental acceptance-rejection is related to young adolescents' psychological adjustment when adolescents perceive themselves as accepted or throw overboarded by parents. The relation between mothers' report of maternal acceptance-rejection and behavioral ascendency and adolescents' psychological adjustment necessitys to be considered within the adjoining matter of maternal acculturation.

Search terms: Acculturation, Korean American, parenting, psychological adjustment, young adolescents

Psychologicnl adjustment is adolescents' cognitive, emotional, perceptual, and motivational quality to reply in various life circumstances (Rohner Khaleque, & Cournoyer, 2005) Poor psychological adjustment is related to many socially related health riddles in young adolescents (Eccles et al., 1996) Substantial evidence has established the relation between parental acceptance-rejection and dominion government and adolescents' psychological adjustment in European American adolescents (Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Rohner 1991)

Maintaining healthy psychological adjustment may be more complicated for Korean American adolescents than for European American adolescents. Korean American families live in sum of two units cultures and they face the challenge of dealing with the pair American and Korean culture (i.e., acculturation; Kim & Choi, 1994) In the proces of acculturation, individuals may balance the couple cultures (integration), or exclusively tread in the steps of either Korean (separation) or American tillage (assimilation), or follow neither agriculture (marginalization) (Berry, 1997). The relation between parental acceptance-rejection and sway and adolescents' psychological adjustment may be hanging on Korean American parents' acculturation.

The goal of this application of mind was to examine the relation between parenting variables (acceptance-rejection and behavioral control) and their young adolescents' self-reported psychological adjustment in 106 Korean American families (young adolescents, mothers, and fathers). Further, this research explored the idea that parental acculturation might have a moderating result in the relation between parental acceptance-rejection and behavioral rule and young adolescents' psychological adjustment. It would be important to assess the consequence of both parents and young adolescents' acculturation; however, this investigation was focused on parents' acculturation as a first pace in this line of research. The parental acceptance-rejection theory (Rohner 1991) and acculturation framework (Berry, 1997) were used as theoretical frameworks.

Theoretical Framework

There are sum of two units approaches in studying relation between parenting variables and adolescents' developmental results The dimensional tradition studies the influence of the parenting practice dimensions including parental acceptance-rejection and command (Rohner, 1991); the typological tradition studies the influence of the parenting mode of speechs including authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglecting (Baumrind, 1991) Kim and Rohner (2002) ground that 74% of perceived parenting experiences of 245 Korean American adolescents did not fit into Baumrind's typologies of parenting phraseologys Thus, the dimensional approach, which treats parental acceptance-rejection and dominion government as an independent variable, was used in this close attention

According to the parental acceptance-rejection theory (Rohner 1991; Rohner et al., 2005) parents can be placed in the continuum between acceptance and rejection based upon how warm they are toward their adolescents. Accepting parents are warm and affectionate. Rejecting parents accompany to be cold, hostile, indifferent, and undifferentiating. When adolescents perceive themselves to be cast awayed by their parents, they attend to have poor psychological adjustment characterized by dint of dependence, hostility, emotional unresponsiveness and instability, depressed self-esteem and self-adequacy, and a negative worldview (Rohner et al.).

The theory also examines parental behavioral superintendence which ranges from permissiveness to strictness (Rohner 2005) Permissive parents exercise minimum rule and allow adolescents to do things their hold way. Moderately controlling parents make a hardly any clear limits and then allow adolescents to regulate their have activities within these limits. Firm parents guide the adolescent's behavior by dint of a firm schedule and parental intervention. Restrictive parents enforce many masterys on the adolescent's behaviors and limit the adolescent's autonomy (Rohner) Although the parental acceptance-rejection theory does not state specifically that parental behavioral rule is related to psychological adjustment of adolescents, single could hypothesize that the relation might be curvilinear.